Amy LeBlanc (she/her) is Managing Editor at filling Station magazine. Amy’s debut poetry collection, I know something you don’t know, was published with Gordon Hill Press in March, 2020, and was longlisted for the 2021 ReLit Award and selected as a finalist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Her novella, Unlocking, was published by the UCalgary Press in June, 2021. Her work has appeared in Room, CV2, PRISM International, The Literary Review of Canada, and elsewhere. Amy’s next chapbook, Undead Juliet at the Museum, is forthcoming with ZED Press in 2021.
“‘Branches in the shape of an open hand’ was written in response to the painting El Arbol de la Vita (1960) by Leonora Carrington.”
five bruised sticks,
a sick tulip, a stomach
full of nail clippings. A slip
stitch, a purl, an unravelling
of cells that regenerate
every seven years, eating
the notes taped to our chests.
There are no desiccated berries
at the edges of our breath.
Nuthatches poke at skin
on our backs, beneath
ribs. A bleed down from
bark, below darkness,
underneath a blue tinge
of smoke that you leech
from our lips.
If the shadow we cast
is large enough for a grave,
someone will die.
You say here I am
as though we locked you
in the basement—
covered you in dirt,
didn’t let you near the sun.
We wept over you for weeks
with green tears dripping
from our faces.
The magic of sympathy
cracks through our skulls,
but not the way we wanted.
