Poetry by Jaimee Boake

               Jason Trbovich CC




A Sestina of Lungs and Legs

A guy at the gym asks me why I like to run 

and the real answer is I don’t but men have teeth 

and girls go missing and his breath 

uninvited on my neck is heavy 

as the way the asphalt holds the heat. 

I say it's an escape. 


Or, need to know exactly how fast I can escape 

when a stranger’s smile signals its time I should run 

not slowed by muscles burning, heat

fueling fire in my belly, teeth

gritted. Need legs ready when fear is heavy.

Have to control my breath.


I run because this morning I read the news, breath-

less and aching. A life trapped in print. No escape.

One less soul leaves the world heavy.

A reality too fast to outrun.

A violent chattering of teeth.

His cheeks redden in heat.


Not all men he sputters, swelters, in sweat-soaked heat

but all women know that acid-fear on their breath

when it's not enough to bare teeth

or when soft pleading can’t buy an escape

So ask me again why it is I run,

chin lifted, though heavy.


When I march away I feel his eyes still, heavy,

but I’m trained for this, exit into July heat,

mid-day, the hardest time to run.

Deep inhale. Exhale. Get lungs full of breath

and move and move and move and escape

until I too, am teeth


I will not be found, or identified by teeth.

Will become the hammer of heart. A heavy

hope will grow light. I will escape.

So you’ll keep finding me here in this heat.

I will not be scared when I take my last breath,

I am ready to run.


At home in this heat

you won’t catch me out of breath.

I can run.





Summer Body

There are things I want to say 

when they talk of summer bodies such as 

we are all finding our way home to ourselves; 

there is only the shape of truth. 


The rhythm of rabbits and robins 

plays hopscotch in your heart;

you are the woods, ancient groves 

whose roots soak up the earth’s magic. 

And I hope one day you will know the way

that you laugh in campfire crackle,

belly birthing sunbursts;

feel the flowers stretch from your fingertips. 

You are the pollen and the world grows in colour,
​
sustained by your strawberry soul. 


Don’t you know your body is the season?

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Jaimee Boake (she/her) is a high school English Language Arts, Creative Writing, and Leadership Teacher in Sherwood Park, Alberta (Treaty 6 Territory). She loves reading, writing, spending time with her dogs, and is happiest, always, in the mountains. A recipient of the Martin Godfrey Award for Young Writers, more of her work can be found in various literary magazines and anthologies or on Instagram @jaimeeannethology.

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