"On the Heaviness of Summer Evenings" by Catheryne Gagnon

Some days when my body feels heavy, I leave my heart, dripping on the countertop and walk out into honeyed light, cicada song still thick in the air.

In dusty bars I meet people who see the shapes, not the hollows – their laughter colours the dusk.

When I grow quiet, I’m thinking of fingertips on membranes leaving an indentation, of the way salt lingers on skin.

When the sea laps at the door, I take off my shoes and wade into my water moon. I drink in the type of nostalgia that doesn’t wait for an ending.

When I get home it’s always late, no matter the time.

I drop my keys

into the slick-thick remains

of the day,

I dip my finger and write

wish you were here

in the empty space,

everything curving under its weight.

Catheryne Gagnon (she/her) lives in Tiohtià ke / Montreal and works in communications in the humanitarian field. Her poetry has been published in Black Fox and Quail Bell. When not writing, she can be found tending to her plants, searching for the best window seat at a café or looking for fireflies in dark woods.