From the Archive: Katie Jordon (CAROUSEL 29)

Staff/ October 22, 2020/ Poem

KATIE JORDON

I see the same labourers every morning on my way
to work, they use yellow gloves that remind me of something

other than yellow gloves. I want to say canaries,
but there is nothing sweet or wild about them.

I wear black and carry plates, glasses — full or blanked —
for most of the day. An occasional, strange hand placed on my hip,

the small of my back; their coins in my apron sing when I move.
I’m in love with the chef and his shapeless white coat

and he wonders how anyone could love him so, stained
stinking of grease. I will wonder these same things, but later.

Sometimes he wants to be a cowboy,
plunks his lucky boots from Vegas at the foot of my bed.

Nights alone, I sleep with a few of my father’s bones
in a matchbox under my pillow; wish on semi-precious stones;

keep miniature Buddhas, rowed and smiling.
There is nothing sweet or wild about them.