From the Archive: Chelsea Coupal (CAROUSEL 40)

Staff/ October 30, 2021/ Poem

CHELSEA COUPAL

Rural Hangover

I picture myself sometimes, slim
as I was then, walking in, stripping

down, lying down in that dirt-morning
light, hungover, and nausea tucked

under my mind like an old note.
I didn’t mind those mornings: click

of dried contacts, tumbleweed
stomach, and the sun pouring

through bedroom windows
slowly. Before the farmhouse,

you lived in a trailer
with walls so thin I swear

you could see through them.
Hardly a yard, just pasture, and cattle

peering in, curious as trick-or-treaters.
You woke early to work: feed cows,

move bales, study seed openers. The rhythm
of heavy equipment shushing around

in the background, behind an alarm clock
song, low volume. Held between that

scribble of tin, we loved each other
while dust fell around us, silver

and squinting and gently — leftover
confetti, dead and then reanimated again.

Chelsea Coupal‘s first poetry collection, Sedley (Coteau, 2018), was shortlisted for three Saskatchewan Book Awards and selected by Chapters Indigo for an Indigo Exclusive edition. Her work has appeared in publications across Canada, including Arc, Event, Grain and the Best Canadian Poetry anthology. She has won the City of Regina Writing Award and been shortlisted for CV2’s Young Buck Poetry Prize. She grew up in the village of Sedley, Saskatchewan and now lives in Regina, where she completed a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing. More: chelseacoupal.com

Rural Hangover
appears in CAROUSEL 40 (2018) — buy it here

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