“Archivists” by A. Light Zachary

April 29, 2024

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Archivists” from A. Light Zachary’s collection More Sure, shortlisted for the League’s Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

Archivists

By A. Light Zachary

It lives in I love you as it lives in I’m scared, too. It lives in be careful, it lives in welcome home. It lives in every late-night subway ride survived alone, these days, as it lives in every risk we hesitate to let each other take. It lives in our never throwing old tickets, little notes, or anything at all away— every twinned scrap an artifact, our pockets shrines. Your wallet bulges with what-if-it-were-to-happen as my closet fills with this-would-be-all-I’d-have; my handwritten lines, your sweaty shirts in sealed bags. It lives in, while you stir from sleep around me, my lifting high the camera to immortalize this deeply mortal thing. Look at how it lives in this one: safe, for now, and tangled in this shroud of dawn, how it is alive. Good morning—is it raining?

A. Light Zachary is the author of More Sure, which was recently named a Stonewall Honor Book of 2024.

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!