[09/16/2026][POETRY]The Economy is Bad
two Poems by a. deveaux
spooky action at a distance (the mermaid)
papa woman makes the mirrors rough,
it’s a new day and he’s the picture
of self-determined beauty;
a misfired brick.
he wears imitation leather and
has hair like rhea perlman.
fumbles around in his bag for
stray mayonnaise packets.
papa woman wants a lover;
casts his net impossibly wide.
the drug prophets preach to him
but he does not listen.
papa woman goes out dancing,
wants to be a mermaid
that can manoeuvre on land.
wants lesser men to fear him.
in bed, papa woman hears
the post-coital sighs of his catch
and drifts off, into thoughts
of entanglement.
when papa woman wakes up,
she’s the picture of self-determined
beauty; a burning stick in the mouth
of a dog.
god of plenty
you trace the lines of my
palms and you give them
place names and route
designations.
you give them satellite
imaging, and street view.
little cities spring up
around the junctions of
my veins, and little people
live, and have children and
die there. they drive
little cars and they look
just like me.
i ask you if
the little people like it there,
and you say no, the economy
is bad, and the little people are
full of microplastics, and
they’re at war with the mites
that live in my arm hair.
they feed on the children,
it’s really terrible, you say.
they run frontline coverage
on their tv’s at night and
keep rifles by their bedsides.
i ask you if any of them are gay.
well, they’re all gay, they just
reproduce asexually.
it doesn’t mean they care
any less about the children.
their family court system is very
progressive, he says.
i look down at my open hand
and decide it is a map of ohio.
A. DEVEAUX (he/they) is a white settler faggot based in Kjipuktuk, Mi'kma'ki (Halifax, NS). Working across disciplines as a media artist, writer and filmmaker, his praxis considers the limits of memory, systems of signification and embodied experiences of space. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Queen's University and a post-baccalaureate certificate in expanded media from NSCAD. His work has screened across Canada and abroad.