Jess Woolford
dress to suppress
step into sack sweats
hide inside hoodie
no shape: too ugly to rape
or so they say
spontaneity?
a luxury ALWAYS
tell a friend you’re going where exactly when intend return
favourite route?
summoning you far
from here/now delivering you to dirt roads
reeds red-wing raucous
senior trees’ shelter
severing tedium’s tether?
TOUGH
vary your course
every run resist
r
o
u
t
i
n
e
for superior security shuffle incessantly
should you detest math much as I
do remember these complex calculations
could keep you quick
music to melt miles?
too risky
eliminate earbuds
heave headphones
prick up pinnae perpetually
in other words AT ALL TIMES
you hear me? no?
then how hope
hear panel van
stealing up behind?
spooked?
study self-defence too
dear or distant like say abortion?
google grab moves
practice PUSH PINION PUMMEL plan
suss sundry scenarios
multiply ‘til your dendrites droop
‘neath hand to hand demands
assemble allies: enact
re/enact
offer refreshments
call it a party
visit vet
scapulae strip
needle nip
and presto change-
o! you are micro-
chipped like fido
jaunt to gym
trot treadmill or track
pretend no one’s assessing your ass
pretend same old
same old doesn’t deplete you
gallop with group safety in numbers and so on and so forth ad infinitum
what’s that?
you sprint to savour
solitude clear your head?
you know better we all do
but should you run rogue
wear winchester
hump it down highway
‘til cops confiscate
afterwards conceal cutter ‘cause
oh my sisters
a girl needs a knife
Jess Woolford
Jess Woolford is an essayist, memoirist, poet, and literary critic who lives and works on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In addition to other publications, her poetry has appeared in The Ecological Citizen, Prairie Fire Magazine, and Contemporary Verse 2, while her life writing has been anthologized in Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada and In the Company of Animals: Stories of Extraordinary Encounters. Woolford has also written for Social Politics, The Winnipeg Free Press, and The Winnipeg Review.
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