Stacie Gin completed her Graduate Liberal Studies degree in 2019 from Simon Fraser University, where she had also completed her undergraduate degree in Humanities. Stacie is a paralegal and university instructor on the North Shore in British Columbia.
poetry
The Angler
Stacie Gin, Simon Fraser University
I flinch when
a rusty fishhook
inadvertently sews my
already-small mouth shut.
My dog is lying on the bed;
sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
She sleeps in frightfully forthright
ignorance.
And I wish I were her
most of the time.
My husband asks me how
I get songs stuck in my head
(and subsequently his head).
When I tell him,
he doesn’t believe me.
One long tangential string
of crossed connections and
breakfast food nuances.
And in between groggy doses of sleep
I get to insert myself into dreams
and contort this little life into something
that gets played again and again on
that old jukebox cowering away in the
corner.
I’ll dust if off one of these days.
Pretty soon I’ll forget what
it was like to feel claustrophobic in
my own skin. And that
sound of loneliness I feel
when the small of my back
fills with critical news I can’t help but
incessantly watch.
Always and then again,
a painted lagoon amidst a starry canvas
sprigs its way to glisten and swathe itself;
a moody grey sigh upon a bent coat-hanger. That
jacket that busied itself with smoking and
anguish and
love.
And the busy street is now a pauper:
creaking wares and tethering asphalt
and some eighteen-odd fortunes
gathering pride from much-wanted wear.
The pale white lines are
slats of window-blinds, adorning that
which is only visible through negative space.
The ghosts of my shadows
whisper the sullen melodies that I wish
I could remember.
If catch and release is an option,
I will slowly unthread that old fishhook
curling around my mouth
and spit out the blood as it comes.
Copyright © 2020 by Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs