I wait: poetry by Phoebe Colby

ARTWORK BY RYAN CLOUGH-CARROLL.

I wait

like a chair sits empty

positioned & purposed,

set one task: absence.

To see a chair fully is to see its

non-use. A chair in action

isn’t a chair at all. Hybrid

structure, body obscured

all limbs, arms, legs.

The chair before me

could be a door, it’s

that hollow. If you put

an ear to it you get

tinnitus.

Plush where cloth meets

hard wood, scoped back,

lined arch cut against the table.

I don’t like middle

-men; I prefer to sit

on the ground. Let me feel dirt,

clay without bounds, unmoulded. No

empty air. Let me smack down in a puddle

let me fall back

without thinking, let me float.

So I sit. Legs gone

numb too long, tedious

from walking. The chair groans.

Light shifts on my lap, I think

of bent metal,

the last time I sat in this chair.

---

Writer bio: Phoebe Colby (she/her) currently lives and works on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. With a background in archival studies, farming and non-profit administration, she loves a good office icebreaker and a strong Irish coffee in planting season. She is currently a student with SFU’s Creative Writing Studio.

Artist bio: Ryan Clough-Carroll is a new media artist, painter and musician whose work focuses on the haptic combination of natural soundscape, gesture and new media technologies.