A Poem By Linda Besner

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

The Labour of Being Studied in a Free-Love Economy

My daughter celebrates May Day

by ring-rosing a stripper pole.

She’s a herdsman who closed

her eyes in a lemon grove,

woke up in a janitor’s closet.

At the chime of mop o’clock

in the morning metro, here’s Marx

thundering down the ghost hose.

She’s wet with the spittle of the greats.

Cagey as a row of roosters shining

like goth lip gloss at the fair.

Your attention a soiled glove

to pinch the maid’s nose closed.

For professional reasons,

I follow a sad foster kid’s

anonymous blog. She writes:

“This blog is copyrighted.

I know that means you can’t

take my writing without

my permission. If you do,

something can happen.”

All she has is a misery of interest

to sociologists. Her prize

to be here immortalized

in a dying medium. My daughter

is the delicate trickle-down.

The desk-top orchid trembling

in the front office of a firing range.

Dear window-shopper,

your reward is the Pastasaurus

I bought my boyfriend

at the strip club gift shop.

It’s dinosaur spaghetti-tongs.

Water streams out its eyeholes,

noodles swoon from its green jaw.

Forgiveness on its lips on your neck.

Linda Besner’s first book of poetry, The Id Kid, was published in 2011 by Véhicule Press and named as one of The National Post’s Best Poetry Books of the Year. Her second, Feel Happier in Nine Seconds, will be published in 2017 by Coach House Books. She lives in Montreal.