“Old Salt” by Jade Wallace
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Old Salt” by Jade Wallace.
Old Salt
By Jade Wallace
She called me a sailor
and we met like a
shipwreck. The dark
world was hot and
silver sweat glittered
on her lamp-lit skin.
I fell under a spell of
sleep just before sunrise.
Loose-limbed, I drowned in her
blankets and dreamt of the
greatness of the sea.
In the morning, she lent
me a book and I left her,
having let her leave bruises
strewn across my body
and tattoo her teeth on
my hipbone. I ached for
days afterward. My ear
became a wound that
wouldn’t close for weeks.
Months later, my lungs are
clear, my skin has been
returned to a blank and
empty sail, though my
nakedness seems irrelevant.
Lying alone at midnight, I am
more than an inch from death,
but I am less than a mile.
I chart a course for other
women, but they mark no
crosses on my memory.
Her book is stowed now
beneath a loose plank
on my bedroom floor.
I am harbouring a reason
to see her again.
Copyright © Jade Wallace
Previously published in Clover & White (2019).
Jade Wallace (they/them) is a writer, editor, and critic. Their debut novel, Anomia, written entirely without reference to sex or gender, is coming out in June 2024 with Palimpsest Press. Their debut poetry collection, Love Is A Place But You Cannot Live There, was released in 2023, and their sophomore poetry collection, The Work Is Done When We Are Dead, is forthcoming in 2026, both with Guernica Editions. Wallace is also the cofounder of the collaborative writing entity MA|DE, whose debut collection ZZOO is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press in 2025. Keep in touch: jadewallace.ca
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