Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “That Lump” by Natalie Meisner.

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That Lump

By Natalie Meisner

I held back at the funeral,

had to give your eulogy

& now snot flows, harsh salt finds me

provinces away: at a stop light

on the ring road, frozen in prairie slush

car heater blasting, never enough

to melt the ice pellets spelling

no on the windshield

Each word heavy, little cous

as the hunk of granite

we still can’t stand

to put in the ground for you:

strong sweet boy, good natured,

a badass, sure, but a baby on the way

gone at twenty-two & how

to sum up the you-sized

hole in this world, I can’t nothing helps

but damn it, write something that can’t hurt

The rituals feeble, the universe disordered,

I look down, see a gutted version

of me: a mouth on a face making

words that won’t help,

but can’t hurt more

I pour into the ears

of my family: legion when we come

home home to lick our wounds

pour salt, scattered as we are superstitious

from sea to shining sea

chasing the fish, work & the same

briny demons that that took you,

little cous, we are chasing mend

beyond repair, wearing suits we never wear

in a church we never go to

& outside my Aunt, your mother

can’t stop throwing up

“I can’t breathe” she is saying

“I just have to just get this lump up”

& my mother, your aunt, says:

“You won’t be able to,

that lump is your heart”

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Copyright © Natalie Meisner

Previously published in It Begins in Salt (Frontenac House, 2023)

Natalie Meisner is lgbtaiq2s+ playwright and poet who was born and raised on the Mi’kma’ki / South Shore of Nova Scotia and began her work in the indie theatre and spoken word poetry scenes of Halifax. After studying literature and theatre at Kings/ Dalhousie, she trained as an actor at the National Theatre School then headed west coast for a MFA in Creative Writing at UBC, and Ph.D at the University of Calgary. She has seven full length books in various genres to her name and was Calgary/ Mohkinstsis’ 5th Poet Laureate. She is a wife, a mom to two great boys, and a full professor of creative writing at Mount Royal University where she loves helping other writers find their voice.

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