I will not sleep with you,
so you curse me—not
with venomous words or a mouth
full of spit, but with malicious
ambivalence, you do not
speak at all.
I caress the dust
in my hands, and you give me
what I want: a room to myself,
alone with my words, flying
from the mouth of my cave
on aging leaves.
I cling to the ceiling, speaking
so softly
that you believe I am
an echo of your own utterance.
Defiantly, my voice
lasts even after it cracks
and frays—you despise
that curious rise and lilt,
as if I am always questioning
your right to speak. My body
wastes into the dust
I once held
but my voice remains.
Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of House of Mystery (ChiZine, 2016) and Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary magazines, including Room, Carousel, and On Spec, and they have been featured in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing and longlisted for The Best Canadian Poetry 2015. She is a dual citizen of Canada and the US, and lives in Saskatchewan.
