Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Mall of the Sirens” by stephanie roberts.

---

Mall of the Sirens

By stephanie roberts

willows tremble, in from the road,

near water’s lip,

where one would wish to be instead of here,

drumming in line, humming Hendrix,

holding for purchase things you don’t want,

a doodad you’d realize doesn’t suit your frame

if you took a beat to let yourself

rise to your own amazement, which is beyond

the atrium’s glass ceiling,

beyond the tang of loneliness

in the storm nestled heart level.

this is what comes of taking dreams

off the horizon. it is the sun

or nothing else, you would scream

if you weren’t caught up in the chorus.

an acorn folded its arms.

it desired death in black’s riches.

when you first got hold of it, this is

also what you wanted. pocket-placed,

wishes grow overly precious, like a tongue

over decay in a tooth. desire, wish,

& will fought like tights in the laundry.

you jumped fences without losing breath.

you could keep the bow toward sunset.

it felt like all the time in the world. eyes to sky,

small running start with a tree asleep

at your breast. everything smooth is rose tone

& false. it was the sun or nothing else

you mumble to nobody. only the sun.

now you won’t reach home. you never

reach home.

---

Copyright © stephanie roberts

Previously published in EVENT Magazine, Issue 47.2, Fall/Winter 2018. First appeared in Poetry Pause on June 11, 2020.

stephanie roberts was born in Panamá, completed school in New York City, and became the poet that she is today in Québec where she has lived for many years. Her collection rushes from the river disappointment (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) was an A.M. Klein Poetry Book Prize finalist. Her work has been widely featured in publications across North America and the UK, including POETRY. She has a complete unpublished poetry collection created with the support of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

---

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!

---