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From the archives

American Judge

The normal is gone

The Trust Spiral

Restoring faith in the media

Lax Americana

What happens if Donald Trump returns to the White House?

I’m a country girl

 

I’m a country girl. It’s hard to grieve in the city.

The buildings are too flat. In the streets

loss flees its reflection in glass, memory

turns to dust in corners, is swept away,

becomes the sad smell in drains, bad dreams.

I’m a country girl. It’s hard to grieve in the city,

no bed of sand or grass to lie down in,

watch the forms of clouds return to formless.

Loss flees its reflection in glass, memory

has a voice too soft to be heard within

the din of traffic, the glare of looks and seems.

I’m a country girl. It’s hard to grieve

without hillsides of bare trees in winter

pale skies above long fallow fields.

Loss flees its reflection in glass, memory

seeks the smoke of brush fires layering

short evenings into ordinary nights.

I’m a country girl. It’s hard to grieve in the city.

Loss flees its reflection in glass, memory…

Dale Matthews’s chapbook, A Puzzle Map of the World, won first place in the Ontario Poetry Society’s 2011 Golden Grassroots Chapbook Contest. Her first book, Wait for the Green Fire, was published by the New Orleans Poetry Journal Press in 2010. She lives in Montreal and works in the Writers in the Community program, a joint venture of the Quebec Writers’ Federation and the Centre for Literacy.

Related Letters and Responses

Evan Bedford Red Deer, Alberta

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