Author Archives: Cornelia Hoogland

About Cornelia Hoogland

Cornelia Hoogland's recent publications include Dressed in Only a Cardigan, She Picks Up Her Tracks in the Snow (Baseline), and Cosmic Bowling (Guernica). Trailer Park Elegy and Woods Wolf Girl were finalists for Canadian national awards. Cornelia was the 2019 writer-in-residence for the Al Purdy A-Frame and the Whistler Festival. She lives on Hornby Island BC, the traditional territory of the K’ómoks Nation, Gilakas’la/čɛčɛ haθɛč. www.corneliahoogland.com

Light of Her White Hem

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Light of Her White Hem

 
Light jackknifes the Beaufort, pries open the mountain filling with snow.

From the rear of the bus; from the bottom rung; from her under-brow stare—
the girl in dark glasses hunches over last night’s dream:
underwater hands shelling peas, a hinged purse, a receipt for an exemption.                    .

High school kids shuffle down the boat ramp, laughing
and pointing. Beyond earshot, the girl looks over sea that carries her,
over the land that carries her through school bells and schedule.

Halfway between decibels and disappearance, she rolls down
the window, lets loose her hair. Combs white snow
from needling firs: the world’s cold evidence.

Tangerine between her hands as one who beholds a winter lake.

 

painting of a girl with a winter hat, long hair, and one cranberry earring
Girl with the Cranberry Earring by Judy Parsons
 

Listen to Cornelia Hoogland read “Light of Her White Hem.”