new from above/ground press: year of pulses, by Jenna Jarvis

year of pulses
Jenna Jarvis
$4

kantō

east of the barrier orleans
amalgamated on a fault line

my chest is plain but i’m no
landscape nor its dianthus

i don’t blame my spine for curving
away from my heart

or from what isn’t there
love or a proper metro system

in ottawa like diphenhydramine
against the spinning detour

the mall punks sulk at a deluge
they’re expected to crave

but rain binds them and clouds
of fresh smoke to the entrance

i vomit over an empty
stomach and bike rack

commuters ignore me politely
over horoscopes, the predictable

the earth deviates in slow time
proleptic and incarnate

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jenna Jarvis has published poems in such places as Word and Colour, sea foam, my (small press) writing day and The Puritan. Her poem “syndical not synecdochal” secured an honourable mention for the Puritan's 2014 Thomas Morton Prize. In 2012, she won Bywords.ca’s John Newlove Award. year of pulses is her third chapbook.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com