folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
there is always good
I know there is good
I see the people who help and
how it feels to help others
I know there is good
I feel my flesh like an animal I carry
every day now
I move to Vancouver
because
I want a reason to
quit my
job
and
because I know out there
there is good
I do not have to watch over
my shoulder all the time I
know
there is good
I take
a break to sit
with myself and try not to
lose the hope
that there is good
there must be good
there must be
because first I blamed
winter but now there is
sun and
the sun must be good.
and then it was the
mess and we cleaned and
the cleaning was good.
maintenance has me feeling
like things are pointless, only
to get messy again but
the way it feels to know
things have been made
clean
again –
that feeling is good.
to care for other people is good
to meet new ones is good
to be silly is good
to let myself be silly
and serious is good too
and honest. honesty is good.
to have goals, that is good.
even little ones
little is good, because they are
easier to hold. finding things
worth holding is good.
I know I have to be tough. that
is very hard. being tough is
tough, but I remind myself
that the outcomes will be good.
I am tired because I am so
bad at feeding myself. food is
very good. food is good and
needed to do any of the
other things that are good.
I am amazed
by the people who don’t have to
remind themselves of the good.
I am in awe of those who just
Do. I have learned Doing
is good.
please, March – be kind
please, take my hand and bring me
through to spring
please, March – lift the veil of
winter and show me there wasn’t
anything more than a heavy
snow holding me down,
melting now – show me
how to be human, something
I fear I never learned.
please, March, be gentle with
my withered winter corpse.
kiss my frozen temples, make
time’s movement sweet again
instead of a bitter and slow,
bring back the hope I buried
so many winters ago.
winter winter winter winter
please, March –
don’t
let winter stay
in my
body
anymore
I don’t want it to feel
welcome
here
warmth is easy to
give but hard to find,
and
here you are
radiating
it.
the heat of a star
is measured in millions
of kelvins; the warmth
from your love far
surpasses
that –
measure it in dinners
made and times I’ve
cried on your couch and
been reminded that
humanness is found in
the small moments, the
phone calls asking “can
you
pick me up?”
because
you always can
you
always can
a star, formed under pressure,
then develops a gravitational pull –
yours
is so strong you
are
orbited by planets
kept lush with your love
a beacon reminding
our own warmth
to keep trying
because
we can
because
of you
we
can
Currently I have several short collections I'm querying, as well as a full-length collection I've been sitting on for a while now and hope to get out into the world soon. I have a collection of works about my journey with gender affirming surgery in collaboration with a photographer and good friend that we hope to release in 2026, as well. A lot of my work lately has revolved around connecting with those I love, and I have found myself exploring love poems thanks to finding myself in a long-distance relationship with the most wonderful partner I could ever ask for.
Salem Paige (they/them) is a poet and multidisciplinary artist based on traditional Coast Salish territories (so-called Vancouver, British Columbia). Salem holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Ottawa with a Major in Communications. Their works revolve around the exploration of identity and discomfort, and can be found in their debut collection of poetry The Third Self (2023, Sunday Mornings at the River Press) and their chapbooks miraculous dead things (2025, above/ground press), evolution artificialis (2025, Anstruther Press) and to grow roots (2023, bottlecap press), as well as in several dozen literary journals and magazines. They have previously been twice nominated for Best of the Net, shortlisted for the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and the Bridport Poetry Prize, and longlisted for the ROOM Poetry Prize. More on Salem can be found at salempaige.com or @corpseofapoet on the Internet.
