SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Ten
AGNES WHITFIELD
Synesthesia
One fall I took to reading the dictionary late at night
picking up strange words like sward and suspire
Oh, it's not that I treated them ill
after a drink or two I took them home
back to the Dictionary of English Etymology
I waited to make sure the key turned in the lock
and they let themselves in before driving away
Not that I didn't dream of more fanciful climes
symphysis and symposia synaloepha and synovia
dancing until dawn and other vaguely illicit pleasures
But I can't say I felt a decrement in the intensity
of our encounters or the need to defalcate
any supercilious syllables more often than not
I forgot their names as soon as I saw them
That didn't prevent me from marveling
at what good shape they were in
after all these years part of them caught up in a book
the others running footloose anywhere at all
In my nightly routine I concluded of us all
I was the most addicted to my plight
Agnes Whitfield lives in Toronto, Canada and writes in English and French. Her latest volume is Poète, où te tiens-tu? (Sémaphore, 2021). She teaches Canadian literature at York University in Toronto.
