Queue

Conyer Clayton


As we rolled toward the turnstiles, I realized — she will never fit. My mother stared straight forward with an open mouth. We watched my sister's car roll smoothly through in front of us, frame morphing naturally, a mouse flattened between baseboards. I abandoned her for fear of being trapped. In the car she was next to me. In the car she was alive. I allowed myself a last look, then shut the door, and she was gone. I went inside, calm, and my best friend sampled ice cream while I bought a small orange octopus crammed in a glass orb. I sprinkled water on his exposed scalp, wondering what spaces he could fit into, dreaming how I'll clean his cage on my afternoon's off, his consciousness of my care. What if the emptiness you're confined to fits you perfectly? What if knowing you can take it makes others build smaller spaces?  I dust the porcelain weekly. The rocks under his suckers are scrubbed on schedule. She was still gone when I shut the door.





Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are: Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (forthcoming with above/ground, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press), Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press), and For the Birds. For the Humans. (battleaxe press). She released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still, in August 2018. Her work appears in ARC, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead, The Maynard, Puddles of Sky Press, TRAIN, post ghost press, and others. She won Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize, 3rd place in Prairie Fire's 2017 Poetry Contest, honourable mention in The Fiddlehead's 2018 poetry prize, and was long-listed for Vallum's 2018 Poem of the Year. She is a member of the sound poetry ensemble Quatuor Gualuor, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full length collection of poetry is forthcoming in Spring 2020. Check out conyerclayton.com for updates on her endeavours.