“Stubblejumper” by Katherine DeCoste
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Stubblejumper” by Katherine DeCoste.
Stubblejumper
By Katherine DeCoste
Growing up in the land of long
hard winters
you learned at twelve to build
a fire and never forgot.
Itโs all you carry with you now.
Tell them how
it pinches your nostrils shut,
the air, cruel and dry, makes your eyes
run and cheeks smart, how you
almost lose a finger at fifteen
when youโre too stupid
and stubborn for gloves.
Flat land of dry cold and quick
wind like a knife to the throatโ
the river freezes a foot thick
and you stomp over it in boots
not made for this kind of morning,
when itโs too cold to snow
and the skyโs white and blue
burn the eye of the sun
into your vision.
Crouching over a fire your friends
built in late November,
nursing your fresh wounds,
you steep tea
and read poems to the North Saskatchewan.
Tell them that:
you wonโt go out for six months
at least
and the dark days last longer
when the nightโs deadly.
Your mother told you: sweat, freeze,
die so you layer
skin over skin
against that old friend, winter.
You can do it without gasoline.
You can do it
in the wind
with wet wood
while tears freeze on your cheeks
and the trees creak
with their regular mourning.
Copyright ยฉ Katherine DeCoste
Katherine DeCoste is a queer Pushcart Prize-nominated poet whose work has appeared in Grain Magazine, PRISM International, Contemporary Verse 2, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. They were born and raised on Treaty 4 territory in so-called ‘Regina, Saskatchewan,’ and now live on unceded Lษkฬสทษลษn (Songhees and Xสทsepsษm) territory with their fiance and cat. You can find them online at katherinedecoste.com or on Instagram at @katydecoste.
Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!