You think you might have had this one before.
It cracks—or grey, or highly blue—it doesn’t shape
the day it will unpeel.
No more than half your heart looks sidewise,
young unpacking morning,
underhum / anxiety
with strata / underpin / fatigue
with coffee / waking
chamber after chamber.
The screen will barely tell you any different
(nothing, really).
As the shape unbends
(hesitant)—(umbrella),
points of reference tell you
this is, by a whisker, new.
If the calendar’s on standby,
then do the days still stride?
If holding still with several birthdays
camouflaged in condos,
then we’ll all emerge our sprightly selves
before the spring.
If we cannot put hands in hands
till time has dried our sidewalks,
then we do remain, prevailing
blossom banking
where we dragged our feet
and April says to May,
we do remain.
Frances Pope is a writer and French-English translator. Originally from the UK, she has been writing and taking part in readings and spoken word events for several years, starting in Brighton in 2009 and continuing in London, in France, and in Montreal where she has lived since 2015. Her work has appeared in Carte Blanche, Asymptote, Québec Reads, L’Organe, and UNAM’s Periódico de Poesía, and is forthcoming in Graphite and Phantom Drift.