Easily,

By Maria Giesbrecht

I could have become a woman

who needs to slurp at the throat

of a brown bottle

to feel something. Easily,

I could have visited Rome

and thought about tying

the red sky, wet like a silk scarf,

around my neck. Easily, I could have lipped

one too many bar boys and ended up with two

strollers and a court date. But I didn’t.

Just as easily, without labor, the world,

in an avalanche of white light,

found me, good as a goose egg,
​
with my head to the sky.

---

​Maria Giesbrecht is a Canadian poet whose writings explore her Mexican and Mennonite roots. Her work has previously been published in ONLY POEMS, Queen's Quarterly, Contemporary Verse 2, Hobart, and is forthcoming in Canadian Literature. Maria is the founder and host of the writing table Gather, and spends her days nurturing creative folks to write urgently and unafraid.