NECESSARY ACTIONS OF DISTANCE
A good time to return to this poem by Pearl Pirie, from May 2015
IF ONLY IT WORKED FOR NATIONAL POLICIES
weeding, my hands come up
smelling of spearmint
its rhizomes go-go-gadgets
its spaghetti through the soil.
my mint shampoo
hints incognito/continuity.
something lands oddly.
I pat my head, stroke
the back of a bumblebee.
we each freeze, realize
the mistake in progress. each
takes the necessary actions
of distance. correct courses
dissolve into non-incident.
Pearl Pirie’s most recent collection is the pet radish, shrunken (BookThug). She lives in Ottawa.
Image by Martin Walls www.freeimages.com
IF ONLY IT WORKED FOR NATIONAL POLICIES
weeding, my hands come up
smelling of spearmint
its rhizomes go-go-gadgets
its spaghetti through the soil.
my mint shampoo
hints incognito/continuity.
something lands oddly.
I pat my head, stroke
the back of a bumblebee.
we each freeze, realize
the mistake in progress. each
takes the necessary actions
of distance. correct courses
dissolve into non-incident.
Pearl Pirie’s most recent collection is the pet radish, shrunken (BookThug). She lives in Ottawa.
Image by Martin Walls www.freeimages.com