Somewhere I could hear it, what was the sound?
My brain did not break down the bits of sense
To form the logic.
Yesterday he said he was moving to
Another hemisphere
This morning she said she wanted
To marry into luxury.
Neither proposal was true, because it deafened
Them, the words stuck, like a globe
Glazed with ice,
The tongues of words, the mercy
Of them, they were not
Real, or true, or felt.
They were just said, like the coldness says
Good-bye to the freezing body.
They did not begin with spring, they were haunted
Two people, two of them
Trying to join
The first order: is
The last order
To depart.
Eleni (Helen) Zisimatos is Co-Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of the poetry magazine, Vallum: Contemporary Poetry. She holds two MA degrees and has been published in Canadian and international journals. She was a finalist for: a National Magazine Award in poetry, the Robert Kroetsch Award, The Santa Fe Writers Award, and two Irving Layton Awards. Previous chapbooks include: Summations: Travels Through Italy, and Searching for a Species (above/ground press). Her debut book of poems, Nearly Terminal, was published by DC Books. She lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tiohtià:ke is the original name for Montreal by Indigenous/First Nations people. https://www.mcgill.ca/indigenous/land-and-peoples/learn-about-land-and-peoples-tiohtiake-montreal/