Two Poems: Tomorrow is a Holiday

FOUNTAIN

1
how well I know now and
then drowsed by the fountain
tho it was night I acceded
to no moon demands tho it was night
and a tourist was grabbing my prone
form on film to no demands of my conduct tuna
cannery cedar shakes and frets
gun-scab steals from the mimicking shadow
with that panseared foreknowledge
of where not to be

6

I know the wide currents
kneeling on the gunwhale
kneeling astride jetski
brown in the
lake hells and heavenly lakes
and to the dancing tourists
and to the mountain
and to the shuttered public pool
and to the night

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Hamish Ballantyne is a poet and translator based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, Canada). He works in the Downtown Eastside and as a commercial mushroom picker. Ballantyne has published two chapbooks, Imitation Crab (Knife/Fork/Book, 2020) and Blue Knight (Auric Press, 2022). Tomorrow is a Holiday is his first full length collection.

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