Polyp

Kayla Czaga

Since his diagnosis, my father-in-law thinks

everyone has nasal polyps. His daughters. His dog.

His phlegmy priest. And now me.

At the dinner table, he angles his soup spoon

for a view, then volunteers to teach me the waltz

just so he can tip me way back. Polyp:

a rogue growth. Cellular excess. A flesh curdle—

akin to the spider I found crumpled

in a library copy of Paradise Lost or the proverbial

gum wad thumbed onto the underside of anything.

Among the rooms of his big suburban home,

my father-in-law wanders. King of the corner lot.

Baron of looking important before a barbecue

but now he’s got these teardrop-shaped errors

inside his face and maybe they’ve always been there,

maybe they’re everywhere. He touches a succulent

on a windowsill and whispers, Polyp.

He touches the Last Supper his wife cross-stitched,

lets a finger rest on Judas’s left foot. He moves along

to the dishwasher. The garburator switch. His daughters’

graduation portraits. The sun-warmed spot

on his bedspread. His chin, its reflection

in the master bath mirror. Polyp, whispers

my father-in-law. Polyp. Polyp. Polyp.

Kayla Czaga

is the author of three poetry collections: For Your Safety Please Hold On (Nightwood Editions, 2014), Dunk Tank (House of Anansi, 2019) and the forthcoming Midway (House of Anansi, 2024). Her work has been awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry and the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She lives with her wife on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people.