Sour Beer for Bitter Hearts

Adèle Barclay

 

I forgot about my necklace
in your mouth but then we spoke
so easily on a heated patio
in the brightest dying light
of the newest year.
I was busy casting you
as a sorry Justin Bieber
but really you’re as handsome
and persistent as a meme
and I’m a soft space
for your sad tumbling.
Every time you fail
at interior design
and I need to dry out
we’ll meet for sour beer
made by women monks
whose devotion is more silent
and free than our stupid hands
scratching at glass screens.

 

Adèle Barclay’s poems have appeared in the Fiddlehead, PRISM International, the Puritan, Cosmonauts Avenue, the Pinch and others. Her debut poetry collection, If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You, was shortlisted for the 2015 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and is forthcoming from Nightwood Editions in fall 2016. She is the interviews editor for The Rusty Toque.