“home as a GIF” by SJ Valiquette
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “home as a GIF” by SJ Valiquette.
home as a GIF
By SJ Valiquette
at the edge of the grocery store parking lot where she worked at fourteen
snow blowing in sideways and drifting over her boots up to her knees
she looks out over an expanse of scrubby farmland and wind turbines
the hole in the ground where a truckstop used to be
the black steel cutouts of cowboys on horseback
the Snake Trail through the Porcupine Hills
and Frank Slide somewhere beyond all that
she holds the camera up to her face
then lets it hang by her side, thinking
there is no lens in all the world
that can capture this much
nothing
Copyright © SJ Valiquette
SJ Valiquette is a queer poet, photographer, actor, and apiarist from Treaty 7 Territory. Their work has been published in Oratorealis, Cotyledon, Queer Dot, Fatal Flaw, Lola, and Bipan among others. Their collection knick-knacks/things no one is saying is coming out next year with Nightingale and Sparrow.
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