January 22

 

rob mclennan

 

 

Cole Swensen: should something happen                   to the heart.
You:             a punctuation                    based on elevation, 

thin air. More buoyant 

than I’ve seen you                                 , lately. The composition
of a grain of sand. How mountains, 

weather, artefacts    of library archive. The needle

and the ink-stained press.  A cloud                   of campfire sparks.

I work a desire                                       for an echo

beyond laundry,      that single, unbroken sentence.

Our young ladies               reclaim two-day-old snow, the distance
of their reach                    their only measure.

 

 

 

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include the poetry collection the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022), and a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com