Two Poems from Oceanleaving by Daze Jefferies
queer overflow
one of one
watermother,
hush an
unacknowledged
ness, hemswell,
restlessly
wavering again,
where saltbush or
bramble have
grown to the
edge, your
holdable shadow
and erodible
caress
eyelets
at the mercy of lavender, almost exultant, mone-
spawned striae embroider my bottom half, dolled up
with oil and cloth gnawed by salt. this body, fishish,
refulgent, swallows drawn breath in the absence of
light. yet to amend a riotous bondage, a threadbare
aftering, a graspable way out. the distance is lavender,
pacified, underlinen. even in reverie, all i can reveal is:
somewhore,
she will have returned
to watermother
cut from the ledger, tongues and loins, with lavender,
interleaved, an abbess and her any longer. come what
may of soft relation, dorsally, sovereign, the skin-yarns
overflown. for this body, lashed, belayed, again there is
a breadth unknotted. yet to abraid her selvageable ends.
the reverence is marginal, beckoning, lavender.
theretofore, in other verses, mothered by water,
she will have returned
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Daze Jefferies is a white settler artist, writer, and educator based in Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). Her multidisciplinary research-creation practice explores queer, trans, and sex worker embodiments, counter-histories, and intergenerational relationships in Atlantic Canada. Her work has appeared in PRISM international, Arc, filling Station, The Ex-Puritan, and elsewhere, and has been exhibited and performed at galleries and artist-run centres across Canada. She is the recipient of the 2024 Riddle Fence Poetry Prize and multiple awards from VANL-CARFAC and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
* * *
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