“summer sausage” by Norma Kerby
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “summer sausage” by Norma Kerby, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.
summer sausage
By Norma Kerby
what you see is a real person
no artificial colours or flavours or preservatives
a properly sun-dried sun-wrinkled never used skin cream
jogger full of excitement on a sunny day
a jalapeno pepper sauce of a day with no apologies for
flakes of spicy distain blended into sun-ripened
tomato sauce ripped with paprika and chili sauce and
ground garlic of a laugh as rhubarb juice spiked by
carbonated ginger-ale gurgles out of the shade and
we lean over your phone to look at pictures of your
latest
this one might be serious a truly no-fat lean
hamburger of a honey who rides a mountain bike
but those sausages being barbecued at the sausage stand
all natural sausages made from shaggy buffalo who
graze on ragged wild grass those sausages waft odours
so deep down ranch home tasty we put fitness aside
and bite into spicy remnants of a bulky herbivore
saliva glands spilling out passion for flavours
all natural flavours captured in a special multigrain
submarine bun repurposed as a sausage glove
excitement for summer
all we remember is
excitement for summer
forgetting
seven months of rain and wind and snow
and tepid lovers
left melting
behind us
Copyright © Norma Kerby
Norma Kerby has been published in journals, e-zines, magazines, and anthologies, most recently, the anthologies, Heartwood (League of Canadian Poets), Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem (Mansfield Press), Seed Dreams (Writers North of 54), Tending the Fire (League of Canadian Poets), Leap (League of Canadian Poets) and (M)othering Anthology (Inanna Press), as well as her chapbook, Shores of Haida Gwaii (Big Pond Rumours Press). Shortlisted (2021) and longlisted (2022) for the Federation of BC Writers Poetry Literary Contest, she writes about environmental, ecological and social issues, in particular those affecting rural and northern Canada.
Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members.
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