The Litter I See Project

Hung in a whipping
wind, sheets, freshly washed. Top
sheet bound over and under and around the line,
tangled, while the fitted sheet loosens, snaps. Floats, full-bellied—
Dwindles, sags, diminishes into a body flattened
on a bed of grass

mowed the day before. He finds the pillowcases still pegged side
by side. Holding
air, releasing it. Lungs.

She left this morning, but first she did
the laundry. Put the note
where he’d see it, on the counter by the sink.

If, she said. People, she said.

♦

Anne Simpson is the author of four books of poetry: Is (2011); Quick (2007), winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award; Loop (2003), winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; and Light Falls Through You (2000), winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize and the Atlantic Poetry Prize. She has also written two novels, Falling (2008), longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and winner of the Dartmouth Award for Fiction, and Canterbury Beach (2001). Her book of essays, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness (2009), delves into issues of poetry, art, and empathy.

She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she started the Writing Centre at StFX University.

She can be found at www.annesimpson.ca

♦♦♦

Up Next:

“the crisp
hide of a doe”