Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Sienna” by Misha Solomon.

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Sienna

By Misha Solomon

Four pillows on our bed

All with linen cases

The colour called Sienna

Before he goes to sleep

He removes one Sienna pillowcase

Replaces it with black cotton

To preserve the linen

Protect it from his night cream and

Occasional night drool

I first bought him the night cream

For Christmas

The brand is Australian

The linen is French

Just like the Grotte Chauvet

Site of famed cave paintings

Including three steppe lions

I had tattooed on my forearm

Two-and-a-half years before I met him

Dozens of men touched the tattoo

Before he did

Including an Australian

But none ever rolled over

From some drool-encrusted black cotton

To gently kiss the lions

As the day’s first act

Sienna was a clay-based pigment

Used by some Palaeolithic artist

Who didn’t have pillowcases to change

Or pillows for that matter

Never would have spent the morning

Being asked by their lover

Whether ivory, white, or charcoal

Would work best

As an additional accent cushion

But before the artist’s violent death

Trampled, gored, or bludgeoned

I hope he knew tenderness at dawn

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Copyright © Misha Solomon

Previously published in “Some Gay Poems,” a Substack project, in 2021.

Misha Solomon is a poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. He is the author of two chapbooks, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020) and Full Sentences (Turret House Press, 2022), and his work has recently appeared or will soon appear in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Arc, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, PRISM international, and Riddle Fence. His debut full-length collection is forthcoming with Brick Books in 2026.

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