the first women
\nemerged from oceans
\ncarrying within
\nfistfuls of it, hidden
\nsalty-womb-drink<\/p>\n
to anoint husbands,
\nbaptize children, months-long
\nto pass a sacred drop into each daughter<\/p>\n
what is a tear
\nexcept whispered
\nmemory, brine, carried from
\nhome?<\/p>\n
do the fishes weep? do they
\nfill depths for
\nus, mourning lost cousins?
\nDo deep ones,
\nfreakish luminous things,
\nnameless jellies, floating
\nshadow-tentacled monsters? Through the glass
\nyou shudder, snapping pictures;
\nwonder, does it remember
\nme?<\/p>\n
families have limits, boundaries,
\nbarriers, photos that will never
\nbe kept in albums, names
\nnot made for genealogies<\/p>\n
you will never learn to
\nswim.<\/p>\n
Gord Sellar, 1997<\/p>\n
notes<\/strong> the first women emerged from oceans carrying within fistfuls of it, hidden salty-womb-drink to anoint husbands, baptize children, months-long to pass a sacred drop into each daughter what is a tear except whispered memory, brine, carried from home? do the fishes weep? do they fill depths for us, mourning lost cousins? Do deep ones, freakish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,8,10],"series":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems-canada","tag-gender","tag-poems-from-canada","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xIep-6","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis poem is one of the first semi-decent ones I wrote back in my undergraduate days . It was “published” in a chapbook that my class put together. I quite like the connections between tears and salty ocean water and the womb; I feel like saying something about the profoundly modern experience of disassociation from nature (seen through glass) and how that is somehow mashed together with our experience of having our human distinctness from nature torn from us by the discovery of, and deepening of our understanding of, evolution. But I think I’ll just shut up and let the poem say it instead.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"