Home as a GIF
by Sarah Jean Valiquette
at the edge of the grocery store parking lot where she worked at fourteen
snow blowing in sideways and drifting over her boots up to her knees
she looks out over an expanse of scrubby farmland and wind turbines
the hole in the ground where a truck stop used to be
the black steel cutouts of cowboys on horseback
the Snake Trail through the Porcupine Hills
and Frank Slide somewhere beyond all that
she holds the camera up to her face
then lets it hang by her side, thinking
there is no lens in all the world
that can capture this much
nothing
snow blowing in sideways and drifting over her boots up to her knees
she looks out over an expanse of scrubby farmland and wind turbines
the hole in the ground where a truck stop used to be
the black steel cutouts of cowboys on horseback
the Snake Trail through the Porcupine Hills
and Frank Slide somewhere beyond all that
she holds the camera up to her face
then lets it hang by her side, thinking
there is no lens in all the world
that can capture this much
nothing
Sarah Jean Valiquette is a queer actor, internationally published poet and photographer, and the creator and curator of (re)markable project. She has studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Banff Centre for the Arts, and she has a BFA in theatre from the University of Victoria. Her work has been published in Oratorealis Magazine, Queer Dot, Wellington Street Review, Dog House Press, and in her first collection of poetry, "Little Rebellions," which came out in the spring of 2019.