“self portrait as a bible” by Phyllis Cherrett

July 3, 2025

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “self portrait as a bible” by Phyllis Cherrett.

self portrait as a bible: a haibun in which i find myself

By Phyllis Cherrett

while clearing the basement after the river came overland and crowded in thru the window wells and

around the old, ill fitted doors. I spent a day with a borrowed pump forcing the water’s slow return to the

banks as the tide line dropped toward the floor and the pigeons came back to their nests in the

neighbour’s eaves, their wooing and cooing and shit dropping everywhere. afterward a substantial

deposit of stinking dirt all over the basement floor, and we shoveled it up into buckets which we toted

upstairs and emptied on the flower bed, still winter empty except for crocus and tulip shoots, just across

the sidewalk from the door. when we moved the storage shelves away from the walls there it was, mud

stained white leather cover and most of the old testament leaning against the north side wall, pages

swollen and rippled with time and repeated cycles of soak and dry, freeze and thaw. the new testament

and back cover were gone and the print blurred, but several quires remained complete and on the

frontispiece the inscription almost legible, For Our Daughter On Her First Communion, 11/11/45

broken feathers still flying thru rain

Phyllis Cherrett is a cis female poet with Long Covid, living and working in treaty 5 territory.

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