The Debt. Andreae Callanan

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the debt

      Copyright © Andreae Callanan, 2021

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

      FIRST EDITION

       Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: The debt : poems / Andreae Callanan.

      Names: Callanan, Andreae, 1977- author.

      Description: Poems.

      Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210122528 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210122587 | ISBN 9781771964173 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771964180 (ebook)

      Classification: LCC PS8605.A45 D43 2021 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

      Edited by Luke Hathaway

      Copyedited by Emily Donaldson

      Cover and interior illustration: “Water Carrier I” by Diana Daly. Used by permission of the artist.

      Text and cover designed by Christina Angeli

      Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the financial support of the Government of Canada. Biblioasis also acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,709 individual artists and 1,078 organizations in 204 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates.

      PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

       FOR SUSIE

       Contents

       Promise

       Crown

       The water-carriers

       Barrens

       Vocabulary

       Entertainer

       Night-waking

       Mantel

       Carousel at the Christmas market, Brussels

       Winter

       My mother’s cigarette

       Impromptu

       The engineer

       Golden

       Asymmetry

       To my spine

       Aubade

       Cement

       Weatherproof

       ICU

       Summer motel

       House sparrow

       Vacant lot

       Putting up

       Fall fiscal update, with damsons

       Exhibit

       Infinity dress

       The model train is undergoing repairs

       The mussel hunters

       The debt

       Single use

       Anniversary

       Notes

       Acknowledgements

the debt

       Promise

      These are the rumours: rapturous

      clash of sea-stones heaving

      under the chill collapse

      and pull of tide to shore, moss

      padding the shaded forest

      floor in deepest green shot

      through with chartreuse

      strands, the marshes inlaid

      with autumn fruit. Time-carved

      cathedrals of cliff,

      congregations of gannets.

      How many colours

      pulse in a single shard

      of Labrador feldspar? What

      is the sound of twenty thousand

      seabirds calling through silken

      fog?

      Promise me it isn’t all just wild

      and