POETRY: YUSUF SAADI

ENDGAME
 
 
I’ll rent a basement without Wi-Fi or windows
where my typewriter’s keys evoke the nights
our rain was still gentle. And we’ll have a black cat
named Samuel Bucket. One night, you scream Fuck it
and reconnect the Ethernet to scour the hookup-lands
in which I found you. In response I recount yesterday’s
rumours (kids saying Lima was prey to another monster
storm). The death toll, charities, they’re prolly making
rounds now on CBC, CNN, BBC— and god knows
the death or missing tolls tonight in some other coastal
town. Instead, unplug, ignore the screams above our
bedroom without windows. Board my craft Calypso: let’s
float on this flooded earth where Odysseus abandoned
you. Isn’t that when history began, so many years ago?

Yusuf Saadi’s first collection is Pluviophile (Nightwood Editions April, 2020). He previously won the 2016 Vallum Chapbook Award and the The Malahat Review‘s 2016 Far Horizons Award for Poetry. At other times, his writing has appeared in magazines/anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry 2019, The Malahat Review, Vallum, Brick, Canadian Notes & Queries, Best Canadian Poetry 2018, and Arc Poetry Magazine. He currently lives in Montreal.