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Joanna Streetly

Even So

​five heads of hair that comb went through
scrape and tug of curl-battered tines
as we sat on the old canoe, not fidgeting 
worn metal hull hot beneath our legs
and the searing burn of thigh flesh if we shifted

five kids—I was youngest, rushing
to close a four-year gap, no sprint fast enough
time chaining me to my lineal
place, last groove on the stick, my mum
so ill because I--
 
there I am sitting in the yard in midday sun
staring at dents in metal and peeling paint
the glinting debris of tweezered lice, that
pale blue surface littered with corpses
lessons in multiplication, while

fingers like hounds trot through
the parted rows, my scalp a scouting field
underbreath comments: oh lord, terrible
how d’you let it get so bad?

and still that shameful scuttling in the unmown
 
grass of my hair, and even so I’d give anything
to be there, frying in the heat, the hot-land sun that would
finish off the lice, finish off mum, her tired hands
safeguarding my head, tho’ she didn’t have
the time for this, didn’t have the strength

Biography

Picture
Photography by Jen Steele
Joanna Streetly’s (she/her) most recent book, Wild Fierce Life: Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast, is a 2018 BC Bestseller published by Caitlin Press. Other titles include Paddling Through Time (Raincoast Books) and Silent Inlet (Oolichan Books) as well as This Dark (poetry, Postelsia Press). Her work is also published in Best Canadian Essays 2017 and in anthologies, magazines and literary journals. Look for her essay “Water Signs”  in the January 2020 edition of The London Reader. 

Joanna grew up in Trinidad and moved to Canada to study Outdoor Recreation and Wilderness Leadership. She has lived in Tofino since 1990, most of that time off-grid on islands, or in the float house she still lives in today. She is the inaugural Tofino Poet Laureate 2018-2020. 
 
Social media: 
     Website www.joannastreetly.com   
     Twitter @joannastreetly  
     Instagram @merganser_bay
 
 Photo credit: Jen Steele  www.jensteele.com
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ISSN 2639-426X
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  • Home
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  • Issues
    • Issue 49
    • Issue 48
    • Issue 47
    • Issue 46
    • Issue 45
    • Issue 44
    • Issue 43
    • Issue 42
    • Issue 41
    • Issue 40
    • Issue 39
    • Issue 38
    • Issue 37
    • Issue 36
    • Issue 35
    • Issue 34
    • Issue 33
    • Issue 32
    • Issue 31
    • Issue 30
    • Issue 29
    • Issue 28
    • Issue 27
    • Issue 26
    • Issue 25
    • Issue 24
    • Issue 23
    • Issue 22
    • Issue 21
    • Issue 20
    • Issue 19
    • Issue 18
    • Serenity
    • Issue 17
    • The Audio Room
    • Issue 16
    • Issue 15
    • Issue 14
    • Play It Again
    • Issue 13
    • Issue 12
    • Issue 11
    • Issue 10
    • Issue 9
    • Issue 8
    • Issue 7
    • Issue 6
    • Hand to Mouth
    • Issue 5
    • Issue 4
    • Issue 3
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 1
  • Submissions