“What do you do?” by Molly Cross-Blanchard
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. This June, Poetry Pause celebrates Indigenous and LGBTQI2S+ poets for Indigenous History Month and Pride Month! Read “What do you do?” by Molly Cross-Blanchard.
What do you do?
By Molly Cross-Blanchard
When you brush your teeth do you get toothpaste on the mirror or are you a cyborg?
Do you sleep naked or do you suck?
Have you ever talked to the moon as a friend?
Where did you grow up? Did it have a waterpark? Did the fair come through every August and did you piss yourself a little on the Ring of Fire?
Is this haircut negotiable?
Do you have roommates? Are they also blonde? Do you and your roommates sit knee-to-knee on a futon drinking pale ales and watching The Office while someone pours queso over a plate of Tostitos?
Sorry, that was pointed.
Have you been on the apps long? Have you ever swiped left on every nice-looking person because you felt undeserving of love?
What time of day do you masturbate, mostly? Do you think about an authority figure or a lesser mortal? Am I the kind of person who could make you hard? Don’t answer that.
White liquor or brown?
Fucking or friendship?
Land Back or rEcoNciLiAtiOn?
Do I intimidate you? I know you can see my areolas through my T-shirt and yes it’s a power move but I really am a sweet girl, just ask my therapist from when I was twelve and too anxious to have sleepovers.
Did you go to therapy when you were twelve or does your spirit stay in your body when you talk to your birth father on the phone?
How many pets have died since you were old enough to feel that perverse loss? What were their names? Where on your body are they tattooed?
Are you going to let me live my life or are you going to sit me at a dinner table with your sexist friend Steven?
Are you going to be pissy if I write poems about how much sex we are or aren’t having? And if I say, Okay then I’ll write about my other boyfriends, will you throw a beer glass, not at my head, but not not at my head?
Will your mother look at me across the yard at the engagement barbecue with pity all over her face because she knows she raised a shitbag and hopes there’s something I can do about it?
Should we make out?
Copyright © Molly Cross-Blanchard
Previously published in Exhibitionist (Coach House Books 2021).
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis poet, writer, and editor born on Treaty 3 (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 (Prince Albert, SK), and currently living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, cka Vancouver. Her collection of poetry, Exhibitionist, was published by Coach House Books in 2021. She teaches Indigenous studies and creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
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