Use your teeth. No need for scissors. Grab a hold of it, by the corner maybe. Bite down. Tear. Don’t be precious about it. Or, instead, use scissors on the top, and then let the dog rip at the bottom. What you want and can’t have, so now want it more. Love. Peace. Fill in your own blank as needed.
The bottom’s fallen out, or it’s been ripped out. Is it just the bag, your life, or maybe the whole world?
Upended, so that everything falls out all at once.
On the news, images cluster: the shell of a school, burnt out, in Kharkiv; an old man feeding four cats from one can of stew, spooning it onto the pavement with care; children in the Krakow train station being given balloon animals to comfort them after long journeys; women weaving a camouflage net onto a chicken wire frame; a wedding in a war zone, bride and groom both khaki clad—holding roses in their hands, so hopeful.
Here, somewhere in Canada, a bag with the bottom ripped out. Left behind.
Here, and there, the world ripped open, so torn apart.
Scatter rose petals. Try hard.
Then, try harder.
Cultivate peace through protests and poems.
Imagine the scent of rosewater, distilled from the essence of Ukrainian wedding flowers.
Then, think of hope, and of how peace blooms much too slowly in the spring of yet another pandemic year. These patterns, how you wish they could be broken. Not to be repeated.
♦
Kim Fahner writes and lives in Sudbury, Ontario. Her most recent book of poems is These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019) and her new book of poems, Emptying the Ocean, will be published by Frontenac House in Fall 2022. Kim is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Representative of The Writers’ Union of Canada, and a supporting member of The Playwrights Guild of Canada. She may be reached via her website at www.kimfahner.com
♦♦♦
The Litter I See Project 