Each morning my morning
hope fades failing the crossword.
What’s a seven letter word
for sugar pill that begins
with this low-belly dread?
Perilous wind bisects QC abbr
for corner store and I know
neither. What percentage
of thrift store treasures belong
to someone’s dead relative?
Daylight sifts through my desk,
dribbles between fern curls.
Province of Chesterfield Inlet.
Antonym of airborne. Third
cup of coffee from the Best
Grandpa mug, wondering when
he last used it or anything.
Five-letter layabout. Trout basket.
A crow crash-lands in the eaves.
Soon a panic at near-lateness
that to others resembles purpose
will lift me from this red
wheelie chair and fling me
ignorant into the streets.
Begins with an A. Steady tap
of pen cap on newsprint,
sipping from this cup I gave
my grandfather that his death
gave back to me. Denial,
synonym. Never again will
he mention its chipped
rim before upturning it
to air-dry beside the sink.
Kayla Czaga is is the author of For Your Safety Please Hold On, which one the Gerald Lampert Memorial award and was nominated for the Governor General's award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay poetry prize, among others. She lives in East Vancouver and works at "possibly the nerdiest bar in Canada," according to the National Post.