Cob and Child by Laurie Koensgen

November 30, 2022
Poem name: Cob and child Poet name: Laurie Koensgen Poem: This cob of corn is a spinning top gift-wrapped in a paper husk. You tear it loose and toss away the tattered tassel ribbon. It turns in your palms and twirls across the table, yellow ripples spilling filaments of silk. This cob of corn you nibble on is music curled on a player piano roll: Summertime, it plunks an’ the livin’ is easy… Stubborn licks that stick in my head like corn sticks in your teeth. This cob of corn, all the kernels shorn, is van Gogh’s impastoed field: ochre furrows of sun-drunk wheat. Your yellow hair is a pulse of butter. Daubed with his indigo you run among the sheaves. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Laurie Koensgen Laurie Koensgen (she/her) lives and writes in Ottawa. Her poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies and online magazines across North America and in the UK. She was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry 2018. She received honourable mentions in Arc’s Diana Brebner Prize 2018 and The New Quarterly’s Occasional Verse Contest 2019. Her poem “Gravities” was part of the League of Canadian Poets’ 2021 Poem in Your Pocket collection. Laurie is a founding member of the Ruby Tuesday Writing Group. Her latest chapbook, Blue Moon / Orange Begonias, is with Rose Garden Press.