I was as an orchid wearing nothing but
the light. You hammered an I into me
like a nail, taught me the language of glass
as you forged my eyes from the surfaces
of sight. You’ve seen it all: the feral child
putting on his Halloween werewolf suit,
the teenaged boy kissing his breath-fogged
reflection to feel what a kiss looked like,
the stranger staring at me today. Home
décor haunted by life, time’s true rhyme,
breakable river forever flowing in reverse—
the face I face is as much yours as mine.
…
Nathan Mader is from Regina, Saskatchewan. His poems have appeared most recently in The Ex-Puritan, Grain, The New Quarterly, and Best Canadian Poetry 2018. His debut book of poems, The Endless Animal, is forthcoming in 2023 from Fine Period Press.
