Kate Gough
SALT
His eyes leak tears
of coffee and gin.
He's afraid to peak
at his lovers fading grin.
His tortoise shell glasses
are smudged and blurry.
The fear like molasses,
He wishes it would hurry.
Asphyxiated
by uneasiness,
just give him an answer.
Does he crave
the neediness?
He'd rather romance her.
He's now in space,
where the stars are
galaxies.
A love erased
by his wish for
finality.
One day he'll look back,
not a pillar of salt.
He'll take some prozac,
and say it's not his fault.
* * *
BIRD
The bird only moves in spastic jolts
like an old stop motion animation,
he jitters
unless he is flying.
Writing the word down,
she couldn't understand.
The pain,
chronic.
What an impossible
forever.
She watches the bird,
as her body lurches forward
from the pain
chronic
and
dizzying.
How could she learn to fly,
with the weight of that word
pushing against her spine?
Kate Gough is a Calgary based poet and a member of the online poetry
community. Her work deals with the modernizing of romantic literary sensibilities and
explores recovery from chronic illness and trauma. She participated in a community poetry
event "Escapril", publishing narrated poetry every day for a month on Youtube.
She continues to push herself with creative challenges, through the creation of two
chapbooks about her experiences with mental and physical health. Secondly, Salt and
Bird were recently featured on disabilitypridealberta.com
as a part of their "Disability Stories" segment.
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