“CONSENT TO INVESTIGATION TREATMENT OR OPERATIVE PROCEDURE” by nancy viva davis halifax
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “CONSENT TO INVESTIGATION TREATMENT OR OPERATIVE PROCEDURE” by nancy viva davis halifax. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image
CONSENT TO INVESTIGATION TREATMENT OR OPERATIVE PROCEDURE
By nancy viva davis halifax
![the institutionโs not a metaphor \ & the childโs not a creation of metaphor \ trained \ yes \ by the ringing of a bell \ for silence \ to queue \ to piss \ to walk \ to eat \ to shit \ to sleep \ at first light \the child \ sighs
] listen [
to who they wants to be \ an echo \ unafraid of the dark \ still too small to reach the switch \ someoneโs turning \ lights off & off \ & you remember your fear of the dark \ drawn as a line \ an exact point of origin & end \ chapped & cracked \ red & raw \
] listen [
was there ever \ a kind lie \ was there ever \ only & always hard shit \ broken teeth \ grim against flesh \ a blighted land \ memory \ held behind glass \ dissolves & blossoms \ a doll \ naked on the mattress of a crib cage \ hair in desperate need of brushing \ & at last light \
] listen [
the clouds chant
l o v e l o v e l o v e
l o v e l o v e l o v e
l o v e l o v e l o v e
l o v e l o v e
l o v e](https://poets.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/davis-halifax-web-719x1024.png)
Copyright ยฉ nancy viva davis halifax
Previously published in the way out is the way in (LCP Chapbook Series, 2021)
nancy viva davis halifax embodies disability & chronic illness \ their writing is oriented as an activist & embodied practice – of the body & responsive to wounds written on bodys \ they imagines life as lived through ways of knowin that are off-centre, multiple, sensuous \ they is currently residing on the unceded & unsurrendered territories of the Wolastoqey, Mi’gmaw, and Peskotomuhkati peoples
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