NOW
Four months on a ship, 580 students, a famous poet,
rough seas, rough seasons, assaults, the Amazon,
that’s how the world is now, the vast
world so small it breaks the heart that one could
see it all. There remain in valleys or on hills
possibly tribes as yet undiscovered, whatever
that means. We haven’t seen them on TV yet.
Whatever TV means. Nothing’s gone
viral. This is the age
of curiosity satisfied, the cat going on and on,
gaining extra lives with a click and a flash, banking them,
and if those run out there’s taxidermy, enough cash
and it’s yours with a cushion to match, and still
squirrels smear across the road, and still the girl weeps
for the blind mastiff they put down, and still she wants
the biggest chocolate egg from the basket and gets it
full of all the candy colours in the world.
Author’s Bio
Stephanie Bolster has published four books of poetry, most recently A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth. Work from her current project, Long Exposure, has been longlisted and a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize. Born in Vancouver, she teaches creative writing at Concordia University in Montréal.