"poem" broadside #313 / Queen’s University writer-in-residence (2012) poem-pick # 2: "Meditation On Stress" by Kirsteen MacLeod

Trapped in the crawlspace:
old lawn chairs, the trash can, some metal pipes,
the damn hula hoop
that caught my bike tire.

I’m doubled over,
my bicycle leaning outside,
purse in the rain, the “Yoga
for Managing Stress” class I teach
starting in just 10 minutes.
I peer out the lattice holes,
yellow leaves swirl—
the wind, cosmic joker;
it gusted the door shut
with an awful click.
I lie back, kick wildly
at the half-door. My heart
leaps like a frog in a jar,
and I scream until I’m spent.

What I’d planned for today’s yoga lesson:
breathe in for four, out for eight.
I smell the damp earth, hear the rain plunk
on the deck above me,

notice
the broken lattice.

I thread my hand through,
open the latch:

Meditation On Stress
by Kirsteen MacLeod
above/ground press broadside #313
& Queen’s University writer-in-residence (2012) poem-pick # 2
(curated by Phil Hall)

Kirsteen MacLeod is a yoga teacher in Kingston, Ont., where she stays mostly unconfined.