Salt
Regrets? Lot’s once-wife feelsnone. Contrary to popular belief,
she has no great desire
to be a woman again —
all the birthing, bending,
serving. The crying.
They carry her to the new
land, they chisel bits
of her for the stew. She is still
diminished day by day. But now
she flavours everything.
Susan Haldane reads Salt:
Silk
Her fingers stick. So easyto make a mistake. One
misstep ruins a whole
night’s labour. Still,
she can’t stop. No need
for the shuttle now
and the loom’s the top
of the doorframe, the
corner behind the stove.
Til the night she draws
her warp out through space
from grass head to ground
and at dawn learns all
a single drop of gathered
dew can quench.
Swine
Pigs and people being closekin, for Odyseuss’ men
it was no great leap:
foraged food, sleeping
spooned, a little back
biting. Maybe they missed
the sea-going
days but it’s a myth
that pigs can’t swim.
Susan Haldane reads Swine:
Susan Haldane lives on a farm in northern Ontario Canada. Her book Hard Bargain Road was recently released with Gaspereau Press, which also published her chapbook Picking Stones. Her work has been published in a number of Canadian journals, and in Best Canadian Poetry 2020. You can find her at www.susanhaldane.ca. Twitter: @haldaneford
Banner Art: Swine, an image by Susan Haldane.
IceFloe Press 