Only for so long by Conyer Clayton

January 7, 2022

Poem name: Only For So Long Poet name: Conyer Clayton Poem begins: Like a heavy-footed human, certain stars pull closer every time a wave decides not a break. When I put my hand into water it comes out clean. Decide not to break today. Home was her and home was him. Now home drags itself everywhere, scattered in the confines of loss, a clover shrinking towards the mainland as soon as it spots an island. If you build a fence where a seed already rooted, the branches will take a barrier shape. It’s as easy as that. A fly lands on the window in front of me, and now that is home. He crawls and vomits on the sky itself, digesting the horizon quicker than it’s revealed. End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Conyer Clayton Previously published in Parentheses Issue 08, Winter 2020. Conyer Clayton is a writer, musician, editor, and gymnastics coach living on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. Her debut full-length collection, We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (2020, Guernica Editions), was a finalist for the 2021 Relit Award. She won The Capilano Review’s 2019 Robin Blaser Poetry Prize and ARC Poetry Magazine’s 2017 Diana Brebner Prize. She’s released 2 albums and 8 chapbooks, most recently: Sprawl | the time it took us to forget (2020, Collusion Books), written with Manahil Bandukwala, and Towers (2021, Collusion Books) by VII, of which she is a member. Her second full-length is forthcoming Spring 2022.