Last Year’s Journal: A Cento
by Shannon Lintott
her notebook is sleepless
west is west even when you’re in it
sun trying to hold everything in its arms
the part of us that’s going to lead
the same loneliness where nothing might be
the braid of the mind seemed to have many strands
to feel my limits as I cannot
and know the place for the first time
there are no iron creases in the minds court
everything shifts, one moment to the next,
and leaves a dark stain where it was
a dance of strangers in my blood
far out a part of me was walking beyond the rest
I am the city falling into the sea
does light arrive or darkness leave?
SOURCES: Fatimah Asghar “If They Should Come for Us”, Dionne Brand “The Blue Clerk”, T.S. Eliot “Little Gidding”, Bob Hicok “Aubade” and “She”, Fanny Howe “Joy Had Known”, Audre Lorde “Even”, Anne Michaels “Land in Sight”, Tolu Oloruntoba “Re-Claim”, Adrienne Rich “Someone is Writing a Poem”, Patti Smith “Bread of Angels”, Bianca Stone “Old Bio in Snow”, David Whyte “Clear Mind Wild Heart
Shannon Lintott’s poems have been featured in the Literary Review of Canada, Common House Magazine, Pinhole Poetry, Great Lakes Review, Phylum Press and others, and are forthcoming in the Ammonite Review. Shannon was a mentee for the Diaspora Dialogues Short-form and Arc Poet-in-Residence mentorship programs and are part of the Forever Writers Club, the Mangrove Collective and River Street Reads. They live in Toronto.