On reading the fact of the day

 

By Meg Freer

 

 

If polar bears can sniff prey

from 16 kilometres away,

best return home when you lie

 

on the grass and its blades

bite back, stipple the surface

of the day with regret. Or wait

 

with false alertness until the edge

disappears, your mouth roofless.

Let the wind blow until the lost

 

pieces of the afternoon take

you with them to remind you

that mother said, “Hope is faintly

 

alive yet unknown disaster

may be in the wind.” Are these

days the nadir of your existence?

 

Mirror blessed with memory,

you are a time loop, polar ice caps

are melting, and polar bears approach.

 

 

Meg Freer grew up in Missoula, Montana. She teaches piano in Ontario, enjoys running and photography, and wishes she had more time for writing poetry. Her photos and poems have won awards in North America and overseas and have been published in chapbook anthologies and journals such as NatureWriting, Mothers Always Write, Young Ravens Literary Review, Eastern Iowa Review, and Rat’s Ass Review. In 2017 she won a writing fellowship and attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

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