“home as a GIF” by SJ Valiquette

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “home as a GIF” by SJ Valiquette.


home as a GIF

By SJ Valiquette

at the edge of the grocery store parking lot where she worked at fourteen

snow blowing in sideways and drifting over her boots up to her knees

she looks out over an expanse of scrubby farmland and wind turbines

the hole in the ground where a truckstop used to be

the black steel cutouts of cowboys on horseback

the Snake Trail through the Porcupine Hills

and Frank Slide somewhere beyond all that

she holds the camera up to her face

then lets it hang by her side, thinking

there is no lens in all the world

that can capture this much

nothing


Copyright © SJ Valiquette

SJ Valiquette is a queer poet, photographer, actor, and apiarist from Treaty 7 Territory. Their work has been published in Oratorealis, Cotyledon, Queer Dot, Fatal Flaw, Lola, and Bipan among others. Their collection knick-knacks/things no one is saying is coming out next year with Nightingale and Sparrow.


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