Two Poems by Nancy Huggett

Lunar New Year, Pagoda Sangha

In the drift of winter,
going is the gift. To leave
this cobbled house of needs,
wrap the woolen scarf
around my mouth and nose,
breathe the mentholated
mist of my undoing. To walk
the miles, skaters scratching
freedom into ice with cursive blades
while I plod, wondering if
this night will hold me
in the way that I desire. To be
set free in some way. Grateful

that the bell rang true.
That I did not cough.
That my New Year’s fortune
was divined with sticks that set me
on my path. That when I emerge,
the streets are plowed,
the night is clear, the stars
are out. That I look up.

* 

My First Last
People once believed that the last image seen before death was recorded on the retina.

This might be your last pap smear,
my doctor proclaims as she bends
the wand light, props open the folds
of my vagina with the cold metal speculum,
and peers at my fleshy parts. Looks good!
Just like a cervix should in someone your age.
I don’t ask for a mirror or a more nuanced
description, but imagine the wrinkled portal
to the place where my daughter lived for a while
30-odd years ago. No other tenants. No regrets.
Is this how it starts then, the end my days?
Small good-byes and losses. My first last.

Should I buy cupcakes, confetti?
Throw a party? Invite neighbours
and friends? I remember driving my father
to his golf club at the foot of Mount Bruno
near the end of his days. Could see
in his eyes, as he looked out across
the autumn greens, not sorrow,
but a gathering, as if to imprint this vista
on his retina to take with him forever.

What will I take? This slice of river—
how it bends at the bottom of our street
then runs straight to the Kichi Zibi,
my daughter’s head thrown back in laughter,
my husband’s gentle hands, this earth that
has held me, will hold me when I’m done.

*

Nancy Huggett is a settler descendant who writes and caregives on the unceded Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (Ottawa, Canada). Published in Event, Poetry Northwest, SWIMM, and Whale Road Review, she’s won some awards (RBC PEN Canada 2024 New Voices Award) and a gazillion rejections. She keeps writing.