Luann Hiebert

MATINS

giggle-gurgle   bird
bath prattle  wet 
sunsongs   stir 
      my ruminations
	
	this morning 
      	glory startles
	      garden bee 
	      & boozy flies 
			bizzzz
		buzzz	         zzuzzzz 

neighbour’s weed
whacker thwacks 
		her dog
	barks & trees
		a squirrel 
		
day breaks 
in diapasons
	dogged queries 
	& niggling worries
			skirrrr 
	dashed by today’s 
antiphon
		gurgle	whirrr	

green canticles 
	swirl round 
		pine & fir
	sound poems
        ear
marked

JACK

jack be nimble
jack be slick
jack bait her 
hook line & sink
	   her 

where have you been
dear jack   out fishing
	fond of fish    
	drowning in air 
		liquid sky
		left at bay

her day-eyes darken 
agape	 
	you hid the hook
	bit her lips 
	pierced with desire

gold-green wall-eyes
jack your sun-flecked 
scales & opal ribs a
lure   piked to whet
	& choke 

by hook & by crook
your free-fishing style
will soon have you hooked
& the fish to fry   jack	
	will be you

SOME ANTICS

you (plural)   	en	counter
		some	antics	
dis	a	sem	bled 

dis 	or	dered	sound
	seeds 	grow  	wild	words  
		clench  dis  figured  in
fections a de 
		clension failure 

	lang u(s)age a rime 
in crustation 	in festation
you (plural) 	sink in to sea
		un   knowingly
		clutch at limit	less  spaces
		meaning less 	sent tenses
		muscles taut	too many
	semi odd tics   &  err  attic  antiques
you (plural) decline
		
		O
		      a poetic body
			to die for	
				       a kiss
				you (singular) & me
				O    the inflection 
				point    of contact 
				       two arcs
				convex&concave
				      		
			O-Oh		
		a converse     relation
	      	a conjoined     elation 

		dis  eased rhythms tum
		tumble over reason
				O
			ecstatic conjunctions
				you&me

YOU HAVE CANCER

skin slouches
living stones
propagate under
tear-pressure

you have cancer

dread locks
body cells
darken blood
prey silently

it takes guts
to sky-walk
lines cast out
in spades

you have cancer

organ grinders
play tone
on bone de-
compose vitals

press breath
less beneath
sweat-soaked
bed sheets

you have cancer

no morphemes
strong enough
to hold your
morphine dreams

praying for mor-
phallaxis there’s
no relaxant or
palliate

you have cancer

Luann Hiebert is a PhD candidate studying Canadian poetry at the University of Manitoba. She teaches English Literature courses as an adjunct professor at Providence University College and Steinbach Bible College. Her debut poetry collection What Lies Behind (Turnstone Press) is shortlisted for two 2015 Manitoba Book Awards: the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book and the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Luann’s poems appear in literary journals including The Society, Rhubarb, and Prairie Fire’s Electric City 2.