Grace
Poetry
Grace is a settler living in Ontario on the traditional and Treaty territory of the Anishinabek people, now known as the Chippewa Tri-Council, comprised of the Beausoleil, Rama, and Georgina Island First Nations. Her debut collection of poetry, The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak, is published by Guernica Editions and a Lambda Award finalist. Her work can be found in Grain Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere.
New Year
Like all beginnings, it held hope in a tight fist:
This is the year
you’ll do that thing. So I say goodbye
to the plants we couldn’t keep
alive, each dried up promise
to do the dishes, take out the garbage,
sweep the dust and hair.
My hair is leaving me
by the hundreds each day. It’s not me;
it’s science. We lose almost enough
hair each year to make a full wig. I am lucky
my biggest inconvenience is my hair growing
scientifically weary of me.
I tell myself it is just another day
to pet my dog, wake up
next to the one I love. A new day
to reconvene with my body, finally
have time to say good morning
to every unseen speck of dust.
I wind my watch. It has seen
sixty-three New Years. Which is to say
it knows every minute
for what it is:
A kindness.
“ This poem was written near the beginning of when COVID-19 first hit. It was a very different time, and I think I had a lot more optimism back then. I've been re-reading it at the beginning of every new year since, to remind me of that feeling of possibility and hope. ”