Montreal Biodôme, April 2016

Kate, I filled the Nalgene bottle my mother
chugged through med-school with bad merlot
and came here to heckle the capybaras

like we did when the sky turned powder
blue. Needless to say,

I miss you. The sky today doesn’t quite
cut through the dome and Wikipedia
tells me Venezuelans eat capybara

sandwiches on Ash Wednesday. That’s one
way to ask for forgiveness. The size
of that sandwich, Kate. Picture it like you

picture me squeezed between your thighs
in an artificial rain-forest. Scheduled mist. A cold
look of awe. Parrots on repeat through orchid

speakers. Bad merlot on repeat. Names
on repeat. Kate. Repeat. Kate. Lately,
I want to leash things. Big rodents. Your

voice. Children in jean jackets
in far away cities. The info panel is blurry. Bright
bones inside the black shape of an animal. A sudden

flash: the IUD’s copper wishbone unfolding inside
your uterus. How it crushed your blue eyes
for weeks, Kate. You asked me to leash

gin for you. Tender. Inhabitable. Are the parrots
who voiced the parrot-sounds dead now? Copper
didn’t agree with you. Needle or not,

I miss you. Repeat. You. We ate cold awe
sandwiches on a bench outside the clinic. Leash
me home, please. I will leave

the capybaras alone to chew fake orchids
at night while my eyes blink mist. Right on time.

Dominique Bernier-Cormier is a poet from Montreal currently based in Vancouver. His poetry has recently been published in Poetry Is Dead, CV2,  and The Malahat Review.  He was a runner-up for the 2015 Young Buck Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Frog Hollow Press Chapbook Award. His first chapbook  will be published in the spring of 2017.

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