3 Poems by Jaime Speed

Cicardian

I want the sunset ripening
like orange. Peeling
back the illusion
of stages.
 
I thought death happened fast
like rubbing my wrists
together
harvests the rind.
 
I indulge the soporific
flame that blooms
its prayers into night:
 
Somewhere near the blue volume
a tricky finger casts
the self-medicating moon;
 
I wear a collarbone of constellations
shedding phases
the lens targets the last star - -

Writing textbooks

The psychic submerges me in water / tells my fortune / in blue cards
The physician plucks the cord / across my collarbones / like anchors / slipping away
My therapist asks for permission / pulls out a fistful of dead stars / to plant ocean-deep
The doctor makes a note / that the fortune teller can’t decipher / turns my palms / to perennial asylum
The specialist predicts the clocks / will collapse / prescribes the zodiac / be drained of all its gold
The archaeologist unburies the collection / taps at sealed lids / as the archivist jots a log / with bloated hieroglyphs / appraises the value of jars / we wouldn’t be drowned in

The birdhouse on Boychuk

for Grace & persistence

Fence-top birdhouse winks
its red roof, hewn with weather.
Her eyes wander when we hit the light
at this bustling intersection, every time
she thrusts a soft finger toward the sky,
The birdhouse, Mama! It’s a reflex
to ask next when winter will end
while we wait like snow for the red
breasts of robins to return, I think
about how I want to drive by in the middle
of the night, when I can slow down and calculate
the immeasurable value of silence,
but the light turns green, so I tell her
there’s an end to everything, I promise
we’ll be flying again soon.

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Jaime Speed (she/her) lives, works, and plays in Saskatchewan, Canada. A fan of reading, gardening, throwing weights, and dancing badly, she has recently been published in The Rat’s Ass Review, Hobo Camp Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, OyeDrum Magazine, Global Poemic, Psaltery & Lyre, Channel, New Feathers Anthology, The Wild Word, They Call Us, Eunoia Review, Flora Fiction, Neologism Poetry Journal, and The Whorticulturalist, along with collections by Ship Street Poetry, Gnashing Teeth Publications, White Stag Publishing, and Indie Blu(e) Publishing. Her prose poetry was selected for Best Small Fictions 2021 by Sonder Press.