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Left Home Torn

Left Home Torn

– Poetry by Natalie Meisner –

Featured in issue 14 of Dreamers Magazine and Honorable Mention in the 2023 Sense of Place & Home Contest

Left Home Torn

Each fall the sharp-eyed gannets
arrived in long lines
they plunged from the sky,
scoured harbour for mackerel
smacked down hard & hungry
they learned how to swallow underwater

I side eyed those quick darts
practicing self-control
“Chew your food, don’t swallow it whole
like a gannet”

When the bottom fell out
of the fishery, or was torn,
we left home, let down
by the unholy trinity:
the bank, the government
& the company store

A few deck boards in steerage
bones of an old bait shed
stubs of wharf pilings emerging at low tide
rows of busted teeth worn too dull to get a bite
is home

The set of his shoulders, his lean to the pitch fork
—atop the fabled bounty, living mountain of fish—
in hip waders his body is mine balancing
on twisting slippery backs of ghosted cod

No more long lines to keep tight, traps to pull
hooks to set just right, just a bleached-out photo
where my own wicked grin, plays on the lips
of a man the sea swallowed before I ever met

A quiver grips my belly, chew slowly,
no matter how hungry the body remembers
torn, torn, cries the gannet as the last flip & flash
of iridescent scales slides through the net
& I remember the bass rumble
in the chest of the one I want
to hear laugh

About the Author – Natalie Meisner
Natalie Meisner

Natalie Meisner is a playwright and poet from the Mi’kma’ki /South Shore of Nova Scotia and Calgary/ Mohkinstsis 5th Poet Laureate. Her work combines survivor comedy with hopepunk in the service of social change. It Begins in Salt (2023) and Baddie One Shoe (2019) are spokenword poetry. LEGISLATING LOVE: THE EVERETT KLIPPERT STORY is based on the true story of the beloved Calgary bus driver instrumental in decriminalizing homosexuality. SPEED DATING FOR SPERM DONORS was a hit at Lunchbox & Neptune. Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family topped non-fiction lists and My Mommy, My Mama My Brother & Meis her children’s book about a two-mom biracial family finding community. She is a wife, mom to two great boys, and a Prof at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. She is at work on a new play about extractive industries (fish, oil) and a new book for kids. 

Did you like this poem by Natalie Meisner? Then you might also like:

The Identified Patient
What I want the surgeon to know
Sanctuary, and other poems
The Body as Poem
Metaplasia and other poems
This is What Death Does
Where Courage Lives
The Psychiatric Patient Profiled in My Application
Modern Medical Miracles
What the Mirror Says
Writing Myself Alive: An Episodic Poem
Breathing; Love These Lively Things
Oh Emma; Slow Dancing
In the Mirror, For My Mother
Zenstronomy: Zen of Instruction, Godma, Astrophysical Reality

To check out all the poetry available on Dreamers, visit our poetry section.

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