National Poetry Month : Nikki Reimer,

“if I become the pariah”

even if there is no conviction

I didn’t get a chance to Jane Lynch, son

O my rancid, absent ontology 

no art but in erasure 

I’m making promises again without institutional backing 

I’m making promises inside Satan’s wet horse fever dream 

lapping up alien innards with my tongue  

Sucking on the tailpipe of late capitalism’s influencer culture 

What you have, do you love it?

What you have, can I have it too?

What you have, does it bring you peace?

What you have, can you sell it later?

Nikki Reimer is a carbon-based life form / fifth-generation settler of Ukrainian and Russian Mennonite descent who resides on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta. Reimer writes poetry, non-fiction, and micro-reviews, and dabbles in multidisciplinary art practices. Published books are My Heart is a Rose Manhattan (Talon Books 2019), DOWNVERSE (Talon Books 2014), and [sic] (Frontenac House 2010).