“Vernacular” by Michael Goodfellow
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Vernacular” by Michael Goodfellow.
Vernacular
By Michael Goodfellow
There is a photograph of how it was.
The thin wooden poles like bones
and the dried fish. The tide swept through
and shacks were built over water. The stilts.
But that isnโt what I mean.
I mean further out, the water picketed with lumber
and how close the hulls came. In the hold
they stared at the dark the way we stare at images
moving across glass,
the way we fetishize light.
The way we believe our dreams mean something.
How they moved, what they touched.
One arm over the other,
the night shuffled and bodied.
Half syllabled movement.
Smelling like cut grass and dried leaves.
The parts of the hull that meant that,
not the ones that meant how the ship moved.
Copyright ยฉ Michael Goodfellow
Previously published in The Malahat Review, 2025.
Michael Goodfellow is the author of Meadow Work (Gaspereau Press, 2026).
Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!