Author: Tanya Rohrmoser

Hello, I'm Tanya! I’m a writer based in St. Catharines, Ontario, and am passionate about marketing, great design, and effective communication—check out my portfolio pages for all things comms. I also work hard to keep my mental health in check, which is bound up in food, play, and finding inspiration and meaning in the every day. Sometimes it works…and sometimes it’s a good grumble and stretchy pants and cake for breakfast. So, for an honest take on those attempts, check out the rest. Questions about work? I'll put down the cake. Feel free to reach out!

Sad Man

truthfully, I know little more of you than a photograph

a yellowing rectangle of a garden of weeds

an average man in a common blue shirt with thinning brown hair

and a squint against the churning sun

I am there in a calico dress with a finger in my mouth

staring at the interesting spectacle of my toe

how many times have I looked at that picture

not worth nearly a thousand words

what would they be if they were there

words and words and words floating quietly and softly

like powdered moths

but how many moths are the dead worth?

I remember the grass was tense as straw

and the bees were hot

and the cicadas hung like skeletons in the trees

it felt dry and dead and thirsty

I know you felt it too sad man

a thistle amongst the others

and a small dandelion sprouting sadly in a calico dress

you became a cliche 

a dirty man on a bench 

with an old paper blanket and a stumblingmumbling walk

living kicks and scorns and the withered apricots of pity

begging for change and always thirsty

I looked for you sad man

I dug in my pockets for everyone who asked

thinking they might have been you

but blue shirts are common these days

and I have grown out of my calico dress

the roots of weeds run deep and spread like quiet fire

until all that is left is the ash

and the thirst

and a yellowing rectangle of a garden of weeds

I remember the grass was tense as straw

and the bees were hot

and the cicadas hung like skeletons in the trees

— published in Looking for Trees (2009)

Petal Witches

you and I hum

like petal witches

 coaxing silver barrows over moons

                       spinning straw into gold

                                   and dropping copper into wells without bottom

lilies for Mary but you were the bloom

you still wear Eden on your lips

and the night round your wrist

                   like a sleeping owl

                             in an hourglass myth

                   I hear you mutter in your dreams

I brushed the honeysuckle from your hair 

and we sank like priests 

from the garden 

into cabernet waters

                   water into wine, my Lord

                     our miracle came first

glowed moon as white ghosts 

pushed sex to tear the full

             and thoughtfully crept 

                              artfully slow

                                         towards a sleeping Adam

this dance 

this ghostly waltz across time 

they still toss about my apple

peeling slowly skin from flesh and suck the seeds like bones

                           what did you learn, Eve?

my daughters tiptoe shamed

mourning for a promised rib

while poppies bloom between their legs

                          call me witch and cloak me in serpent

                          I dance like an asp betrayed

I crossed my womb 

                   and the myth became real

an angel stands at the gates of Paradise

spinning his sword and chanting Babylon

but you and I hum

like petal witches

now long-barren and rocking empty cradles

                      you would not lay beneath a man and I refused to trust

were we so wrong, sister?

sweetly curved and lashed with heaven’s lore

we still coax silver barrows over moons

                   pressing lips to amulets

                          and praying for sin again

—published in The General (2008)