Jessica Hiemstra

LOVE CHANGES US. WHEN WHAT YOU HAD

destroys you, you go to the park
and kick pigeons. You scream
into anything that has a mouth,
you drop dishes
and look at the floor
and see your life in shards
that do not rise
from ashes
or tiles. Imagine
you took a bird apart

to understand it. You would
understand nothing.



Jessica Hiemstra is a visual artist and writer living in Toronto. She's is the winner of two Malahat Review Open Season Awards (2011) and the Room Magazine Annual Poetry Contest (2009). She's published two full-length collections, Apologetic for Joy (Goose Lane Editions, 2011) and Self-Portrait Without a Bicycle (Biblioasis, 2012). Visit her at jessicahiemstra.ca.