Seven Poems
Fargo, ND
We drive past a burning barn
I remember that Faulkner story
I never read but have saved as a pdf on my desktop
“Barn Burning”
Now you are
in real dairy country
For a few hours I’m made queasy
by the AI generated fetus
We talk about the X factor
in a work of art, the thing that transcends
mere technique
The Natalie Portman vehicle
May-December was the case study.
Don’t stop
a heart beat
70 miles from Fargo.
Portal, ND / North Portal, SK
Grass ripples
a portion of geriatric skin
Hejira by Joni Mitchell playing
we shepherd the dogs among the hummocks
piss in a rest stop selling weapons and lunch-bag-sized packages of chips
Edmonton, AB
Eating bland curry in a combination Travelodge indoor waterpark
Around every turn
teens with haircuts
away for church retreats
or travel sports’ tourneys.
In the parking lot
cars stickered—
“proud member of the fringe
minority”
an allusion to Trudeau’s
statement on the 2022 Freedom Convoy. Also, the Canadian version
of the “Punisher”
decal except the mouth
a maple leaf. The errata of girls
in plush cheetah hats
boys
chucking baseballs late into the night.
Prince George, BC
Today we see a hawk nesting atop a utility pole
In the tiny room Sam and I crack heads
A woman exits the Super 8 singing
my Beloved, O, my Beloved
Outside it’s drizzling
my fingers in a pubis of moss
A block from the pizza place a man shoots up beneath the awning of a thrift store
Others lay on the sidewalk
stretching their mouths
The audiobook we’re listening to describes humans as “creatures of excess”
We pass a cemetery
mounds of wood-chips besides newly dug graves
Telkwa, BC
Sam hikes some yards ahead
finds a smear of blood in the snow
maiden hair
hanging from the firs.
We turn like all landscapes
a study in contrasts.
Rooster stares at me with liquid hound dog eyes
as we chew our sandwiches
beside the deep ruts left by an ATV. Fucking
tires in the load. On the drive back
a black bear on the highway
like a teenager
riding no hands in the Safeway parking lot.
Dease Lake, BC
We stop to piss on the shoulder of the Cassiar.
there is a dead dog
slung like a bag of laundry on the lower branches of the trees
Haines, AK
A brown bear waddles in the culvert
the river whirlpools felled trees
branches sail off
It’d be easy to get pulled away
∩
Margaret Saigh is the author of several chapbooks, most recently, I’ve Created A Thing That Will Never Bring Me Pleasure (Pitymilk, 2025) and the creator of circlet, a poetry workshop and reading series. Her writing has been published widely in print and across the web. She received an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and currently serves as a teaching artist with Just Buffalo Literary Center.