mountainsky

Noah Davis

Misread a line she underlined in that book I let her borrow
said I sat on my lopsided porch and gazed
with girlish happiness not glazed
wondered if I made her like that too.
We live in a valley sometimes
that valley fails. When it doesn’t we are sharing a look across a room
—the evolution of all that poetry to this now subtle subtext of a glance
excuse me for all this while she wears that black dress
—because we talked about all of this before. She left for Vancouver
the valley failed temporary the morning brush of her escaped
the mouth of the mountainsky
and the very center of the valley I pressed into her skin accidentally
and I hung my memory of her curly hair
over my balcony and thought banana oatmeal
and what a shitty poem this would make. The Canga she unraveled
I mistook for a tapestry her
bandaged fingers hooked on mine—on top of cuts
she got from the suitcase that contained her
life outside of this valley’s mouth—the coffee rush
smelled of brushed brewed before she left,
the way that she told them all about us and my inexperienced hands
that held on to her and her waist like I was on the edge
of that balcony before she ducked into that
car and I unraveled on the couch in my apartment
and all the things she taught me like how all I have to do is ask and how
I finally get what I deserve and that’s her.

Noah Davis is a poet from Treaty 7 territories or Calgary, Alberta. He is currently studying creative writing and art history at UBC Okanagan.