“Field Guide”, longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize

ByLisa Baird
a photo of a printed copy of the poem Field Guide, which reads: Field Guide for Sophie The 2020 edition of the Field Guide to Grief covers a wide range of sorrows. Chapters on bushfires, locusts, coping with a culture that wants you to get over it in six months. Oddly specific passages: what to say into the silence after you ask for a shovel, having arrived trembling at a dinner party, the still-warm body of the fox you just ran over seeping red onto your arms. An expanded section on grieving while parenting—the toddler who imitates your laugh, doesn’t know the difference between laughing & crying: HAW HAW HAW whenever you crumple on the kitchen floor. And the much-anticipated mourning in quarantine. How to touch each other when we cannot touch each other. How to gather up the river with both hands. What I’m trying to say is I can’t believe you overdosed at the start of a pandemic. Two days earlier I was still shaking people’s hands. Everything was changing so quickly. And then we sat through your memorial with our hands in our laps, still thinking that could keep us safe.