Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “museum dust.” by Isobel Burke.

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museum dust.

By Isobel Burke

i left to look for the water

like a daydream, like the pale

coagulating at the end

of highway 42. you were there,

behind me, standing quietly,

watching. how long

would you have stood

if i hadn’t turned? how long

would you have watched me,

there, in june sun, in fields

of daisies, under a blue sky,

not yet overcast, nestled

in the throat of a valley, so close

yet so far? a five minute walk,

no laughter, no sound of footsteps

following just behind,

not my own breath, shallow,

not a swallow.

i turned, you stared,

the summer breeze settled, we stood,

silent and still, two statues

in a hole in the earth filled with daisies

and museum dust.

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Copyright © Isobel Burke

Isobel Burke is a queer Canadian poet born and raised on Vancouver Island. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Bridport Prize for Poetry and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including PRISM International, The Malahat Review, ANMLY, Verse Daily, and 13tracks Magazine.

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