Issue 9: Erín Moure
Merdique
1
I had never looked into myself and my being.
My knives were shut.
Triste sorghum and a light of stone.
2
Every day, alphabets open to assemblage.
Mock me, mock me.
The letter e. The letter k. The letter o.
I wonder…
3
Thoughts burst the confines of the day,
every day.
Who let you out, rabbity noise?
“Understand me.”
4
Or a squirrel on a fence. Running
5
sideways on the top of a crater and over a period.
Hurt things, in the eyes, the elbow.
a. asks me about health.
I look at it again.
a. tells me about health.
i look at it again.
Are we healthy?
6
Mental health is a constant challenge.
Un reto, en galego.
Haircuts as topiary.
As economic losses.
As memory: Jake and Jim, the Mormon
barbers.
: Billy and Ken, their caps
on, for days after.
7
A scissor kick will get you through the pool,
they said.
Tall and beautiful, leaning over us.
Sunlight around them.
“Cupcake.” A diminutive for caress.
8
What if I remembered? Articles on
the future of the humanities.
La pensée du temps et la
représentation du temps ne peuvent
jamais coïncider.
Giorgio Agamben
Le temps qui reste 118
Merde.
Montreal poet Erín Moure writes poetry and essays and translates poetry from French, Spanish, Galician, and Portuguese by poets Nicole Brossard, Andrés Ajens, Louise Dupré, Rosalía de Castro, Chus Pato and Fernando Pessoa. She has received the Governor General's Award, Pat Lowther Memorial, A.M. Klein, and was a three-time finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is currently working on Kapusta, a sequel to The Unmemntionable (Anansi, 2012) and a further investigation into subjectivity and wartime in western Ukraine and northern Alberta, and on an expanded version of Secession, her fourth translation of the poetry of Chus Pato.
