“Low Maintenance” by Conyer Clayton
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Low Maintenance” by Conyer Clayton.
Low Maintenance
By Conyer Clayton
I don’t really have a preference. Which name you use. The coffee beans. Fonts or flowers or flavors.
Except when it comes to bubbles. Keep my water flat, I don’t need it to be interesting. I’d prefer not
to say—that’s a preference. I’d prefer to stay—that’s a preference. I’d prefer if you didn’t ring your bell
in tunnels or greet me at the door or kiss me when I’m writing—that’s a preference to let my head stay
within my head—that’s a preference to not be brought outside myself. If it’s pillows, I prefer firm and
thick. If it’s partners, I prefer you. You leave me alone in the morning like I prefer to be. You let me
come to you once I’ve absorbed enough sun from my preferred corner of the porch. I guess I have
some preferences. I tried to be low maintenance all my life because I thought it made me likable. But,
I’d prefer not to explain myself, just be, just low, otherwise I’ll explain myself until I question if I like
anything at all, or if I’ll just say anything to please anyone; that I’ll sleep on thin pillows on a double
bed with the TV on for years, and never say I prefer space, prefer darkness, prefer quiet, thick support,
never say my arms go numb and my head goes numb and my whole life numb from my silence, which
he preferred.
Copyright © Conyer Clayton
Originally published in Plenitude.
Conyer Clayton is an award-winning writer and editor from Kentucky now living in Ottawa, whose work often explores grief, disability, addiction, and gender-based violence through a surrealist lens. Their latest book is But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves. (Winner of the Archibald Lampman Award, Anvil Press). Their latest (and seventh solo) chapbook, Kneeling in Our Name, is forthcoming with Gap Riot Press in summer 2024. They are a Senior Editor at Augur, Nonfiction Editor for untethered magazine, and guest edited issues of CV2 and Room Magazine. Their poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in publications including Best Canadian Poetry 2023, This Magazine, Room Magazine, filling station, The Temz Review, Canthius, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, The Capilano Review, and others.
Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!