Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “A Passing Oryx” by Lisa Alletson, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in October 2020.

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A Passing Oryx

By Lisa Alletson

My tongue, this cotton sycophant

betrays me where the school mothers gather

in an unused classroom

to talk about funding.

Gossip and perfume swarm the air.

I apologize when they mistake me

for an old chair

that one covered in mouldy lunchboxes.

Vicious they sing of the principal’s wig

and did he wink at Emma’s Mum?

Why would the teacher wear such a dress

and what of her abortion last year?

I close my eyes to stay unnoticed

fall as a wet word

into the Namib desert

where a sandstorm crusts me dry.

A dazzle of dunes shifts to gold

and next to me, a fog beetle

performs a headstand

to drink dew from his feet.

I absorb the wisdom of a passing oryx

until he says,

But what of her daughter’s

crooked teeth and the stains on her shirt?

I open my eyes to find

the school mothers watching me,

but remain content

to stay a dead chair.

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Copyright © Lisa Alletson

First appeared in Poetry Pause in October 2020.

Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and the UK, and now lives in Canada. Her stories and poems are published in The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, Milk Candy Review, among others. Her poetry chapbook, Good Mother Lizard, won the Headlight Review chapbook contest (2022).

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