“The Inadequacy of Guidebooks” by Louisa Howerow
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Inadequacy of Guidebooks” by Louisa Howerow, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in January 2020.
The Inadequacy of Guidebooks
By Louisa Howerow
The sane are sleeping away the heat of August,
waiting for the sky to break, rivers to be refilled.
A woman unpins her loverโs arm, rises
from the damp bed. Its sweet sameness
drifts to the roadside where birds flutter their throats
and the butterflyโs transparent wings lull flowers.
Nothing in the guidebooks helps her
identify the flora and fauna in this part of the world,
as if such things are self-explanatory, like
village speed bumps painted caution-yellow, like after-
sex regret. In the fierce light,
she busies herself, takes down the sun-bleached sheets.
Beetles cling to the frayed hems, find their way
into the airless pockets. One by one, she flicks them earthward.
Copyright ยฉ Louisa Howerow
First appeared in Poetry Pause in January 2020.
Louisa Howerow writes from the traditional territory of the Attawandaron, Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and Lunaapeewak peoples. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies, among them: Gush: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Times (Frontenac House), Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology (Mansfield Press), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press), (M)othering (Inanna, York University). and most recently, Haรฏkus de Nuit. (ed. Pippa,ย Paris.)
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