Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Composting and Rapprochement” by Kelsey Andrews.

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Composting and Rapprochement

By Kelsey Andrews

I trudge up the driveway, handle of a rolling

garbage can in each hand. Smell of night wind

garbage, the memory of blossoms

when I pass the hulking lilac.

The compost bin on the right tilts on

its wheels, bumping my hip. Inside

the soft flesh of spotted pumpkin

onion skin, green sludge of basil found

too late in the crisper drawer.

If you’re going to leave something behind

it helps to cut and run

never think of it again.

My father, growing soft now in my memory

or I have become more kind to him.

We were crisp as lettuce spines

now we brown toward each other

slough what once we knew for sure.

Wet and darkness bring more scope.

If you’re going to leave something behind,

sometimes, bury it.

Bury you both

and see what grows.

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Copyright © Jaime Forsythe

Jaime Forsythe is the author of the poetry collections I Heard Something (Anvil Press) and Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press). A third collection is forthcoming in 2026 with Wolsak & Wynn. Her poetry and fiction have recently appeared, or are forthcoming, in EVENT, The Ampersand Review, Grain, and The Malahat Review. She lives in Halifax/Kjipuktuk.

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