Concussion
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
History a vice between meridians / I remember
nothing everything / faces repeat, smooth as
rocks on a beach, how the water rises and
falls / circles converge – grey sandy familiar
your face among them / a stone-shaped face
a face-shaped stone / I hold this wet pebble
in my palm / hear your name
january seabed freezes to the surf
the pain remains
ice pushes up from a hot-cored planet
pinging at my memories
some keep clear in glacier / others melt
while milky colours thaw
slush thoughts / names as bergs
float through time, traffic
a great fast car has rattled my head
like a clock shaken at night
after the movement
a whistle between my ears shoots
left then right then hurts at fore
doctors say rest
doctors say don’t rest
doctors say we don’t know
Do I still speak Czech?
Do I still speak French?
Does the colour of the old trees
around my house feel like metal in my mouth?
My eyes snap.
It’s a pain, this ringing / too big for my brain.
How could a person think
the mind is anywhere other than
the body?
Where are my memory and
love other than behind each ear,
beneath unbled skin, coiled in
this half-century old bone bowl?
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About the Author
Norah Bowman is a queer disabled poet living on unceded Syilx Okanagan territory in colonial Canada. Her recent book of poetry, My Eyes Are Fuses, is published by Caitlin Press, 2025.