Fiction

Poem For the Barn

Jill Boettger

Here is your rickety wooden poem. Here is your red, peelingpaint poem, your weather-beaten and abused poem. Here isyour hands-full-of-slivers poem, knuckle-broken and arthritic.Here is your tragic prairie poem, your apologetic poem, yourwind and wet-woollen-mitten poem. Here is your graffiti poem,your smudge-of-neon-pink poem, here is your fixer-upper. Hereis your horse’s hoof poem, imprinted and impressed, here isyour nail and horseshoe, your forgiving walls-of-wood poem.Here is your snoozing-in-the-rafters-on-a-sun-stroked-Sunday-afternoon poem, your hay-a-mile-high poem, fantastic fort andhideaway. Here is your cobwebs and sleeping cats poem, yourmidnight and screeching bats poem. Here is your rain-drenched,kissing-in-the-shadows poem, your must and mice and middenpoem. Here is your pitchfork poem, your toss and sneeze andtoss and hork. Here is your hush, your hush, your what’s-the-rush poem, your nest and your welcome home.

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Jill Boettger

Jill Boettger writes poetry and nonfiction from her home in Calgary, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She teaches in the Department of English, Languages and Cultures at Mount Royal University and is a frequent contributor to Geist.

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