Jami Macarty

Splitting Lesson


                                                  Occupied by going my feet’s
                                                                                 snow-legible steps
                                    trudge sorrow-conversations
                                                                             dragging questions and confusions across
                                                                                            light-enthralled landscape to admit
the wounds I have born in others this year.
                                                        May my presence and cold kneeling
                                                                        abolish your bereft.
                          In this snow-trudge I burn your bruising words together with mine.

Sweat healing interiors--
                                                     Sky’s blue-eyed blue pall
                                                                 to forget never again
                                                                               axe wielding its simplicity
                                                                                                                      split would.

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Jami Macarty gratefully recognizes Native Nations of the West—especially the Coast Salish and O’odham—as the traditional and rightful owners of lands where Jami has the great privilege to live and work—as a teacher at Simon Fraser University, as editor of The Maynard, and as a writer of essays, reviews, and poetry. Jami is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award - Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at journals such as The Capilano Review, Cascadia Zen anthology, Interim, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poetry is forthcoming.