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Winter Wave
Karl Meade
Watershed, muscle: out and back.
At last I feel your rhythm, your soothing lull.
Contra, alto, our daughter’s scream: I cannot tell ecstasy
from heartbreak. Who will be the last
voice you take to your promised
oasis? We live in a house whose young
mother died. Yet another wave
of delusion: we have never been so happy.
Marigold and dandelion, altar wood and wine,
she’ll outlast them all. Even in this broken house
her heart ascended from, I feel the wave
of my last gift to them:
I promise
I will go last.
Karl Meade’s work has been longlisted for five CBC Literary Prizes, shortlisted for Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year, and The Malahat Review’s Open Season Creative Nonfiction Award. His work has appeared in dozens of literary magazines in Canada and the U.S. His novel, Odd Jobs, was a finalist for the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year for Humor. His poetry chapbook, doom eager, was published by Raven Chapbooks in the fall of 2023. He splits his time between Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, and Bronxville, New York, where his partner recently completed an MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College
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