My Sons’ Breathing by Natalie Meisner

January 24, 2023
Poem title: My Sons’ Breathing Poet name: Natalie Meisner Poem: The even sound of my sons’ breathing both keeps me up & lets me sleep far from infants now & closer to men they are still as I pad silently through the velvet heat of this summer night to stand in the sweet wash: in & out & in again on this pulse, their breath the ocean my heart all problems small & large are both scaled & sharpened Double fisted vicious myths: purity, meritocracy the domination of our bodies & the land how one excuses the other for fascists who play bait & switch with religion & nationalism whipping up timeless primal fear: “you have so little and the others are coming to take it” whoever the others may be this shoddy the logic shored up with bleeding leading highlight reels provides duck & cover for guns for hire & bullets for profit I feel it in my body, a painful tearing as a word freedom is wrenched away from meaning, is honed thin & deadly as a spite whittled prison shank & how are we to breath at night with a thin blade between our ribs, we can’t & yet... the even sound of my sons’ breathing both keeps me up & pulls me down & ready for tomorrow their eyes will open, lit with wonder & ask If I want to see this neat bug, that cool rock, this new trick & hell yes son, I do & I pray I will get to each day until I am a very old & laughing woman who nonetheless still wets her pillow at night with tears for the world & its ills & if I am lucky many more chances to creep in on feather feet to your rooms while you sleep to stand in the sweet wash of your breath, the ocean, my heart in & out & in again & this needful insistent life pulse End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Natalie Meisner Forthcoming in It Begins in Salt, Frontenac House, 2023. Natalie Meisner is a poet and playwright who got her start in the indie theatre and spoken word scene of Halifax. Since then she has worked across the country in theatre recently serving as Calgary’s 5th Poet Laureate. Her work uses the power of comedy for social change. BADDIE ONE SHOE (Frontenac) is a collection of odes to renegade women who fight the powers that be with laughter. LEGISLATING LOVE: THE EVERETT KLIPPERT STORY (University of Calgary Press) illuminates the life of a beloved Calgary bus driver and the last Canadian to be jailed for homosexuality. Her play BOOM BABY won both the Canadian National & the Alberta Playwriting Award. SPEED DATING FOR SPERM DONORS (Playwright’s Canada Press) was a hit at Lunchbox & Neptune. Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family (Fernwood) topped non-fiction lists and her children’s book My Mommy, My Mama My Brother & Me (Nimbus) is about a two-mom biracial family finding community. It Begins in Salt (Frontenac, 2023) is forthcoming in the spring. Meisner is a wife and mom to two great boys and a Full Professor in the Department of English at Mount Royal University.