As Unnoticed As Possible
— for Lucy, our original mother
There’s almost always
two of them: mother
and (or mother with)
her child up against
a tilting shoulder, a breast
about to tire and four
separate
hands
each gathering
its own task
each finger
an annunciation
of trust. Care. And this particular pair, an almost
young Australopithecus looking faraway down
into the distance yet beneath and between us, her
offspring, a toddler mesmerized by something
looming behind what’s already here,
this ancestral pair—the colour
of sun-tape over shadow—is
factory-made from plastic, is
conjured
from the gasoline haze
from the gasoline haze
the toy city, an unforeseen cosmopolis done in
by polymers, some in the neonatal
intensive care unit, and others inside
our luminous and ever-improving tooth paste. River run, an infinite
regress of bodies ↔ these Instagram islands:
a floating montage from me across to you from
that jet trail passing instantly to itinerant sea star to
whatever gods hummingbirds once knew, the telepathic and invisible
ones, she’s anxious for me to learn panic being
something we both know.
Michael Trussler has published poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction. His short story collection, Encounters, won the Book of the Year Award from the Saskatchewan Book Awards in 2006. His collection of poetry, Accidental Animals, was short-listed for the same award in 2007. JackPine Press published A Homemade Life, an experimental chapbook blending photographs and text in 2009. The Alfred Gustav Press published the chapbook, Melancholy Girls with Sitar, in 2020. He teaches English at the University of Regina.
This poem was published in the digital edition of Vallum issue 18:1, Invisibility. Available to purchase through our website.
The Vallum Award for Poetry 2021 is now open for submissions! Check out the entry requirements on our website and submit your work to be one of our next winners!
Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 