From all you can is the best you can

i once shoved my foot through glass

getting to know my own anger

 

its patches of stupid

bloody love

 

stress is just a socially acceptable

word for fear

 

i’m ashamed of feeling too much

 

river edges like a cut

of laughter

 

left too long in the sun, a bloated

syringe of time between our kneecaps

 

i know you want

the piece of the story

 

that is clandestine

but i won’t give it to you

 

& i’m not sorry

undo word after word

 

that tumbles out a sidewalk

undo textbooks

 

the science that renders

us invisible

 

undo your own heart, pull each vein

like unthreading a needle

 

hope is half-sung nêhiyawêwin

in a packed classroom

 

beading my cousin

a bolo in lime green

 

remember, love, we can

draw from all directions

 

of time, we can hover & gut

ourselves into new stories

 

be sad & not sad

about it all

Bibliographical info

“all you can do is the best you can” by Selina Boan from Undoing Hours, Nightwood Editions, 2021,

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