by David Barrick
Where’s your head?
says Mother. My hands
reach for the space above
my neck, clasp air, fingers
interlock. Did you leave
it on the school bus?
Did you leave it in your desk?
She walks me down
the back staircase,
retracing crackling
autumn sidewalks.
Is it up in the clouds?
Is it in the sun? Past
the backyard bonfire,
its puffing grey lung.
I hold my breath
until new thoughts ring
like tuning forks, a crystal
glass bumped with a spoon.
That won’t help us find it.
Silly goose, do you want
to eat tonight? A carving knife
and a bed of green beans,
three red pigs rolling in
the stove. Focus: did you lie
down in the library? Is it
by the cenotaph? We pass
stone saints, their baggy
burlap hoods, and then
the weedy lot behind city hall—
home for all the headless
ones, weather balloons
rising twenty storeys up.
DAVID BARRICK is the author of the poetry collection Nightlight (Palimpsest Press, 2022) as well as two chapbooks. His poems have been published in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, ARC Poetry, THIS Magazine, and other literary journals. He is the managing director of Antler River Poetry and teaches writing at Western University in London, Ontario.
Goose can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 7.3.
