Aquifer

By Frances Boyle

How deep must water penetrate to slake
the earth's thirst? Our longing for rain – 
elemental. We are mostly water
after all, the oceans inside us
emerge as tears, as sweat. Our language touches sweet
water, a stream golden with tannin.

---

Glyph

By Frances Boyle

You worry your doyens, you’re young
and you’re angry. Annoying worthy grey-
beards, you tryst noisily: yelp, yodel, yell.
 
Yeah yeah yeah, your pretty yearning
naysays subtlety.

Your arms reach                                                in embrace, in
    praise. Scrabbling,                         your tile laid down
        is smooth to                      tumble in hand,
merely semi-precious– not rare,
never constant,
vowel    shape-
shifting to con-
sonant. Mirror
never     tricks
you.    Pressed
into      thumb
flesh,    you’re
a   palindrome.

You hold your own, youthful
yet wily. Yield yellow yaks
and yarrows by Yukon River.
 
 
Belay matey, stay nearby, tarry always
a way beyond, away by day.

---

Origin Story

By Frances Boyle

I was like a cat, my mother says
eyes feline-wide, unblinking. Hands
whisk the air to show how quick,
how easy each of us slid out.

---

Aftertaste

By Frances Boyle

​Forewarned that hospice
staff may bring out the china
when there is bad news
to deliver, I wince at a tray
 
clinking with cups. On offer
―comfort in coffee. Strong,
with cream not milk.

      too soon
a breath     a pause
    a breath         
 
no breath    
 
                   my suspended
ache
      now awake

Odd to see a lunch kit
Gripped in hands that an hour ago
held my shoulders           lightly
                in sympathy,
that                        lightly
                pushed
my father’s eyelids
                                                shut.
Death on their shift
but lunch still happens.

Back when I was broken-
hearted over some would-be lover
 
the pain would wrack me
with sobs             my voice
would tear my throat.
 
Yet now when it matters
tears only leak
           pain     seeps.

At an auberge in Belgium
I tasted thick rich
                coffee served with milk.
 
I am pining to again savour
the old world
                        in a cup.

---

Frances Boyle’s newest book is Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House, 2022). In addition to two earlier poetry collections, Frances is also the author of Tower, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2018), and Seeking Shade, a short story collection nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2020). Frances’s writing has been chosen for Best Canadian Poetry and Poem in Your Pocket Day. Recent and forthcoming publications include work in Parentheses Journal, Quarantine Review, JMWW, Rust and Moth, and Rogue Agent. For more, please visit www.francesboyle.com and follow @francesboyle19 on Twitter and Instagram.

Photo credit: Ali Boty