FIELD SHIVERS

I’m not cold
on our walk
The cows stock still, auburn, ebony, cream-
coloured tableau
bow to the ground
Heads dipped in golden silky strands
That of a girl child
Whose father doesn’t want her
Won’t eat pink cake, instead
Gender disappointment

The moon hangs low
In her grace, the light slants
The apples gleam in fading sun nestled high
on their branches
Yet far

from the tree

Puffs of warm clouds hang low
Permeate the path
The narrow opening,
He forgets how he arrived here
—there is but one way
Cool bursts descend
Immovable cow—
wards the farmer’s field

Adelle Purdham (she/her) is an educator, parent disability ally, and bestselling author of the memoir-in-essays I Don’t Do Disability And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself (Dundurn Press), which was named an Indigo and 49th Shelf ‘Most Anticipated’ Memoir & Biography and a Miramichi Reader 2024 ‘Nonfiction Book of the Year’. Adelle holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The University of King’s College where she is Editor of The MFA Scribbler. Her prose and poetry appear in literary journals, anthologies, magazines, newspapers, and online. Adelle is Sessional Part-time Faculty at Trent University where she teaches for the Departments of English Literature and Gender and Social Justice. She is a proud mom to three daughters, one of whom has Down syndrome.