folio: Forty-five Ottawa poets
after Emergence, an exhibit by Haegue Yang, installed at the Art Gallery of Ontario from October 1, 2020 to April 5, 2021
On a productive day
I get out my fountain pen
and paper and stand outside, in the rain,
letting wet smear You can’t
read this. You ca t rea thi. You can’t
I melt pods of red wax in a
spoon
held over a candle and seal
open wounds.
I see animals in everything
and crochet little sweaters
for the table legs,
the chairs, the stove
burners.
I watch as an end of yarn
catches "re
beneath the steaming
kettle.
I advertise contracts on
all the hydro poles:
signing away my storage
locker code,
my phone password.
I strip apartments of their
shutters,
and use them to build
houses, cots, and international treaties.
Cyborg horses
alert the neighbours.
I hide in Circle K and make
a picture frame around the
yellow stain
le# beneath molding
potatoes.
First published in untethered magazine vol. 15
Working on now: Currently I am working mostly on short fiction. In the vein of André Alexis, I am writing weird stories about all the unique places and histories of Ottawa.
Mahaila Smith (they/them) [photo credit: Curtis Perry] is the author of the novelette in verse, Seed Beetle (Stelliform Press, 2025). They are a researcher, poet and editor based on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Canada. You can find more of their work on their website: mahailasmith.ca.