We said no and never and
nuh-uh. We said it like
we invented it, like we took

a selfie with No and posted it
#besties. Our no was on tap with
a serious head of foam:
a round for the house!

Our no was an ending for the ages:
we knew it sure as shot put.
I will rise to fame as

the designated refuser while you
streak like a comet across
closed eyes. We will return

as boomerangs shaped like
women in their fifties, choosing
the historically fabulous for

a love triangle: Marie Curie, Amelia
Earhart, Rosa Luxemburg. We keep
forgetting that a love triangle

is meant to include us,
but we like it this way.

Tanis MacDonald is the author of six books of poetry and non-fiction, the latest of which is Mobile: poems (Book*hug 2019). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Understorey, Watch Your Head, Hamilton Arts and Letters and in the anthologies Sweet Water (Caitlin Press) and Far Villages (Black Lawrence Press). Tanis teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.