Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Yes, That’s When” by Lisa Lopez Smith.

---

Yes, That’s When

By Lisa Lopez Smith

after Rosemerry Wahtola Trohmer

I like my body when I’m in the ocean. Ripples

of water, silt, skin; the stars reflect

my eyes, my hair, and I forget

the numbers on jean labels, I forget

labels in the presence of bottlenose

dolphins, and the whistles and clicks and pulses

of the false orcas—their perfect black heft

astonishing and wise and startlingly close;

size and scale alchemizes, oceanizes

and I coral, I cloud. I sunfish. Ebb and eel.

I like when I shark, I lung, I plankton. I seagrass and I tide.

I storm. I wild. Yes, that’s when I remember. And everything—

everything belongs

---

Copyright © Lisa Lopez Smith

Lisa Lopez Smith is a mother and farmer based in Mexico. Her poems and essays have appeared in over sixty literary journals and have been nominated for the Pushcart, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. Her debut collection, Hallelujah Anyhow, is forthcoming from Nightwood Editions in autumn 2026.

---

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

---