Origin StoryBy Angeline Schellenberg
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Embryo—that which grows.
Except you didn’t. Embodied, then ember. Salient point— embryonic heartbeat, a leap of faith into unknowing. God and devil, all that salt found our wounds, our eyes—open. Morpheme—smallest meaningful unit. A language we never got to breathe. God of dreams—maker of shapes, shifting beauty inside me. Embryo—fruit of a bloom, still green and glowing. Salient—from a root of uncertain form. Source of to hurry, to run, to flow. Little one, did you have somewhere to be? Home from the D&CBy Angeline Schellenberg
Care-
taker suite carpet of blue & pink sleepers tags intact My First Baby Book filled with blanks beside each grinning bear the oven won’t stay lit under get well cards stories wish all life beneath the sea good night the tenant outside my door blames me BendBy Angeline Schellenberg
entering St. Norbert
mid-March where the Red’s umbilical cord curves close a deer darts across thin ice two more now six—a taut line suspending fresh sleeves filled with wind prophet-like they raise their almond staves the waters gush twenty-four piano hammers strike sing out their silent chords in dolce staccato I am driving to a meeting to hear my child’s future transformed by storm granter of safe deliveries Saint Norbert my thoughts slip between safety and flood the surefooted deer flow around the riverbend like twigs in bud I’m driving from my son’s universityon a Tuesday morningBy Angeline Schellenberg
A woman on the radio, talking about her sister, her sister’s shooter,
and love So many minutes. Idling at the median. Waiting to cross It’s like my friend’s dog—shot in the shoulder for wanting to meet the neighbour’s cattle You died before I could tell you I cleaned my laundry room They say the light from this UV lamp will make me happy and for their next trick … Why haven’t humans developed earlids? (Darwin, if you’re listening) The parking lot smells like hot chocolate I can’t stop thinking about that dog—joy-limping to my lap Angeline Schellenberg’s Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016)—linked poems about raising children on the autism spectrum—won three Manitoba Book Awards and was a finalist for a ReLit Award. Her work was shortlisted for Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2015 and 2019 Poem of the Year. Angeline launches chapbooks with Dancing Girl, Kalamalka, and JackPine Presses in 2019, and a book of elegies entitled Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press) in March 2020. She enjoys watching geek movies with her husband, teenage son and daughter, and German shepherd-corgi.
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