Poetry

Physics


Note: “Physics” first appeared in The Anatomy of Clay, published by ECW Press in 2011. To see our Q&A with Gillian Sze in this issue of carte blanche, please click here.

What falls from the sky
is still deciding what it wants to be.
Something like rain, something like snow,
the streets mottled with wool caps and umbrellas.
Nevertheless, St. Catherine is soaked.
I hang my jacket, the added weight: proof of indecision.

The horns of snow trucks disharmonize
and someone else laughs, senses a poem.
Any minute now is my new repetend.
Any minute now for the water to boil.
Any minute now for the mailman.

No mail in a week and I am certain I don’t exist.
Loneliness, once the enemy,
has since become acceptance.
It blusters in and as I get older,
becomes easier to identify:
a hand palpating an imaginary organ
that joins my heart to my stomach,
qualms to lethargy.

The shorter afternoons
and the forced optimism of my daily horoscope
make me seek approbation.
Today’s reads:
Your job is to maximize the moment.
Quit judging yourself.

I pass an alley
and a voice from somewhere above me
calls out a curt Sorry!
I don’t bother to look up.

What falls from the sky
is an apology
belonging to anyone who can hear it;
singing, A woman left lonely will soon grow tired of waiting,
a voice spread through that takes its time to dry.

Gillian Sze’s second book is The Anatomy of Clay (ECW Press, Spring 2011). Her debut poetry collection, Fish Bones (DC Books, 2009), was shortlisted for the 2009 QWF McAuslan First Book Prize, and her poem Like This Together won the 2011 3Macs carte blanche prize. She co-edits Branch Magazine and teaches creative writing to youths. Gillian is currently pursuing a PhD at Université de Montréal.