Caroline Misner Poems

I bring important news from the clinic.
You know…

The kingdom of green-walled waiting rooms
...

The factory chimney hisses and fizzles,
curling the edge of the sky, grey
as ash; the buoyant air is filled with mist,
spraying from the harbour where corroded
...

A crackless carapace, pale and blue
as the ocean that swarms around him,
he glides like a sailboat along
the guileless waves; he leaves
...

Thirty-two miles left to go;
a chill wheezing, damp and fragile,
into the morning fog that flanks
the phantom pines like crooked fingers
...

I awake each morning disappointed
that I’m still alive,

viewing you from a hanged man’s
...

A couple sits beside me
in the food court of the mall,
scouring the grey sticky film
from lottery tickets
...

I plan on giving this up very soon;
the labour is just too much for me.
I plan a simple departure—
no fanfare, no tears, no departing
...

I


They fight wars like civilized men,
...

How to eat a grape:

Pluck it from a withered stem.
Hold it on your tongue.
...

Summer comes waltzing in slick leafy shoes,
whirling her fragrant skirts about her knees.
The momentary goddess of all that’s green,
stitching a smile into her jaw, sighing
...