5/17/2020 POETRY: GREG SANTOSSHELL/CAVE The hermit crab lives alone in its own small shell. I, too, live in my own small shell. Its walls are dark and cozy like a cave. I scuttle about from tide pool to tide pool and I am happy. But lately my shell/cave paintings trouble me. Images of dark seagulls and undulating creatures live on my walls. I fear my shell/cave has grown too heavy. I fear I no longer know where the shell/cave ends and where I begin. I am shell/ I am dark cave. DEATH IS A MAN WHO FEELS SCARED Bains Corner, New Brunswick Trudging over fickle ice crystals, moss brittle, trees broken, collecting slight sheets of birch bark for scribbling, we hear something cry out deep in the brush. What was it? A deer, perhaps. A song of sadness, anger, hunger. I am compelled to sing back but what could I possibly say? "Shell/Cave" originally appears in Poets for Living Waters. August 5, 2010 “Death is a Man Who Feels Scared” will appear in Ghost Face (DC Books). Greg Santos is the author of Blackbirds (2018), Rabbit Punch! (2014), and The Emperor’s Sofa (2010). His third full-length poetry collection with DC Books, Ghost Face, is coming soon. Santos is the Editor in Chief of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s online magazine, carte blanche. He lives in tio’tia:ke/Montréal with his family. As part of the National Arts Centre’s Canada Performs initiative, Santos read excerpts from his forthcoming book on May 2, 2020 on Facebook Live. View the performance in its entirety here.
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