No lights on, my Baba sits in her living
room, telling me about the end
of the world. I am alone
there. My father dropped me off
two hours from home when he went away
to work. July, merciless in the heat of the valley
near Kamloops. The sagebrush,
under the sky’s weight, sulks. The world burns
as smoke from wildfires
along the Pacific coast consume the city. Outside,
she sees a war instead. The old country. She will not see
her parents again. She will not see
her husband who drank himself to death
after two of their children died. My father
will die within a year. An unmarked shoulder
of highway will testify
to the existence only of time. I will grow
my hair like loneliness. Memory
will become the address
lost with my father’s body. If I had loved myself
too? When the TV quieted at night. When the fires
reached the doors.
Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, won the National Poetry Series (UGA
Press, 2017). Her second book, through a small ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize
(UGA Press, 2020). Her third collection is I, Divided (LSU Press, 2023). She is also
the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). As a
PhD Candidate at the University of Alberta, her current work draws on research
supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada.
Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.