Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets' daily poetry dispatch. Read "Still" by Laurie Koensgen.

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Still

By Laurie Koensgen

                         —a duplex, after Jericho Brown

 

Between what sparks joy

and what burns the house down.

 

          If the house burns to soot

          and you’re still standing,

 

standing still

beside the cindered lintel

 

          by the ashes of the fallen door,

          you can open your camera shutter.

 

Point your camera and take the still.

I’ve been the archivist these forty years.

 

          I’ve archived it all by hand.

          And now my hand records your face,

 

reckons your face between finger and thumb.

My flint, you still spark joy.

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Copyright © Laurie Koensgen

Previously published in the Literary Review of Canada.

Laurie Koensgen lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry appears internationally in journals, anthologies and online magazines. Recent publishers include Stone Circle Review, flo. Literary Magazine, The Madrigal, and Rust and Moth. She’s a founding member of the Ruby Tuesday Writing Group. Laurie’s latest chapbook, Small Psalms for Moving On, is with Pinhole Poetry.

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