Maria Giesbrecht

Cloud legs

I’ll move to questions about the rain
if you can’t keep up. Wet poetry.
Wild poetry. I was a cunt to a woman
on the train today. She was short.
Her legs looked like clouds
and I thought, I’ll keep her in mind
for my poems. What a cunty thing
to do. Being sad isn’t all bad. A hand
reaches out like a dog. It has teeth.
A variety of them. Some small, like lice,
others long and sharp, like coffins.
Cumulonimbus. Thick. Wet. About
to burst. I wanted to poke her below
the knee and watch it pour.

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Maria Giesbrecht is a Canadian poet whose writings explore her Mennonite and Mexican roots. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Narrative, The Literary Review of Canada, The San Pedro River Review, The Chestnut Review, ONLY POEMS and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2025 Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize and the 2025 Jack McCarthy Prize and was a finalist for the 2025 Narrative Poetry Prize. Her debut collection, A LITTLE FERAL, is forthcoming in 2026 with Write Bloody Publishing. Instagram: @theguelphpoet