National Poetry Month : Michelle Desbarats,

 

 

My Mother's Last Day

At one point the pizza was delivered,
an extra large.
I remember
the box was placed on her legs.
The crowd of us around her.
I remember wondering if
she was aware of its heat,
its presence. Whether
it was correct to make her
legs into a table. And yet
there was no where else to put
it. Sometimes I recall it there,
a small hilarity.
On my mother's last day
we used her legs for a table
for the pizza. Who means
to make these mistakes.

 

 

Michelle Desbarats has one book, Last Child to Come Inside, that was published in the Harbinger Series at Carleton University. A number of her poems have appeared in anthologies such as Meltwater, out of Banff, and Decalogue: Ten Ottawa Poets. Her work can also be found on online readings. Speak is also an early anthology. She has also been working toward readying her work into another book and resides in Ottawa

She earned a Communication Design degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for two years working in the one person art department at the Calgary Public Library. But from very young she has been interested in writing, her first pieces written in a language of bees (the black and yellow ones) and was privileged to have a two year friendship, mentorship with the American poet Jack Gilbert. As well as interaction with other writers.