GREAT BIG CANVASS ❋ Domenica Martinello

Give the poet an ice cream cone. Put her in a futuristic store with glass floors & something cold to lick. The poet trips over her bootlaces. The poet smiles & relays technical sounds she can form in her mouth but is not quite sure the meaning of. The poet gesticulates back and fourth

to herself then to the other then back to herself as if to say: It is warm here, you can trust me. The poet has mommy issues, obviously. The poet thinks: there must be a job for that, somebody did that job, I may as well have done that job, that job may as well have been done by me. The poet is inconsistent,

obviously. The poet emails. She emails about a banged-up 50s filing cabinet from Kijiji & never goes to see it, the poet emails about hair appointments & doesn’t go, about medical check-ups & doesn’t go coffee dates doesn’t go job interviews doesn’t go but the thought of it can be medicinal

in the right doses, without telephone calls. The poet’s manifesto is strewn on the kitchen table though the poet has only ever half-read a manifesto, has never really finished one, if the manifesto were a tattoo appointment the poet

wouldn’t go. The poet always feels as if she is approaching an unapproachable and unruly gathering. The poet defines elegy, the poet defines confessionalism, but cannot locate elegies or confessions. The poet needs to be told to write

with her feelings & not about them, the poet needs the lyric impulse spanked out of her, to be told to ‘get on that new shit.’ Give the poet a paper trail to erase, give the poet a highspeed internet connection & HDMI cable adapter.

The poet needs a bigger screen.