Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Jellybean” by Liz Huntly/Jensch, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.

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Jellybean

By Liz Huntly/Jensch

Jujube of my Friday night
Sugar of my Sunday morning, you
are the juice and the glue
Buddha baby belly roll
jelly roll too sweet to eat
I self-medicate on your
baby smell
Though I come from a line of quilters
I never learned to sew, so
I suture your scalp with kisses

Sweet small boy
my baby doll
please never grow old; oh but
trees grow tall, too soon
I’ll stand tiptoe to
reach up and kiss you

Jellybean in my belly
I carried you
I carry you
you crawl
you walk
you run
you spin
you spin
away
from
me

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Copyright © Liz Huntly/Jensch

Liz Huntly/Jensch lives in rural eastern Ontario (traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee) where she runs an artisan bakery and farms with her husband and three feral boys. Her poems are published in Room, Grain, Riddle Fence, Arc and elsewhere. She is the 2025 Steven Heighton Fellow at the Al Purdy A-Frame and Queen’s University.

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.

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