Thanks once again, Ariel, for pulling us together, and thanks to everyone for your poems and comments. It's been good to have this virtual writing group as an incentive to keep writing new stuff. Now I've got a nice stack of drafts to work on, and am hoping some of that May energy will carry on. See you all next May, if not before...

June . . .

Well, it's a June day now, but in Manitoba no one can tell it apart from a May or April or March day. My heat was turned off weeks ago despite some below zero nights that have me sleeping in layers of flannel and blankets. Fortunately, despite the near-daily rains colouring my mood, I don't have to fight the flood waters like so many Manitobans must this year.

Thank you, Ariel, for once again taking good care of your annual visitors! Au revoir, chers poètes ...

I’ve always been steadied by the fraternity of birds.

Feasted with waxwing, shoulder to feathered shoulder, on banquet of fruit from the highest branches. Mouths too full of berry mash to speak, but – beak or lip, crop or gut – saskatoons stain all throats sweet.

Let warblers clip my whiskers with their busy nibs, align lustrous recitals to the portal of my ear. Twitchy in their hospitality, they showed me their careful carpentry, proud of their sniveling, ugly young.

As men will compare extent of cock, capacity of liver, I measured wingspan against osprey, inseam with heron. (Stifled my grin at their unblinking awe.) Soared so far aloft we happily spat cloud from our faces, watched the crowd below pinch cricks out of necks, try to wince us from sky.

The End of Poetry

Or at least the end of May. Thanks or the great month and many thanks to Ariel for setting this up. I feel like I kept to my goals for the first two weeks, but then became more selective/lazy, especially with commenting. That mid-May hump is tough! But I did write a lot more new poems than I otherwise would have in the month. Here is one last, lazy found poem to finish things off.

Selected Tweets, search: "poetry"
May 31, 2011, 8:38 PM

Comin' in hard from the windy, #remember
they jammin' in this poetry joint, beautiful
like a sunset on a warm summer night.

Saw lips today, thought of you.
@8BLEED_SINS #CONFESSION FREECASH 101

Bedevilment instrument,
showing hashtags for whom pale horses, sharp fine foxes
blossom. My game

Was Never That Tite...But My Poetry
Made All The Panties Wet!
These poets killed it.
I used to write poetry.
I'm about to start writing poetry again.

http://www.pxlpl.us/hcab

Closure

I'm here to get closure.

A rescue mission -

in and out -

grab the stuff I left behind

in my rush to escape.

I want to close the circles

fill the gaps

say my goodbyes

seal the boxes.

But I learn on this trip

that's not the kind of closure

I'm going to get.

I'm diverted

from the path I've always taken,

flooded by the epic weeping

of a springtime river.

There's a breach in the road

that used to be so easy

to get from me to you.

There's a breach in the road

and there's no bridge to cross it.

So all that's left is to drive

in a new direction

even if it takes all night

because I won't risk

getting bogged down

or being washed away

completely in the flood.

----

Thanks all for the month. I wasn't as diligent as I'd hoped, but just participating got me to write down some snippets that I plan to work with over the summer, which is a huge step back toward writing again, so I'm grateful!

All the best to the other wonderful poets here - I've really enjoyed seeing the world through your eyes. I hope to see a version of some of these creations in print sometime...

Routine

Fridays: take the boy to school,

ride the no. 10 downtown, walk

to the Y. Locker in the second aisle.

Stow backpack and coat. Smile at her.

Weird today, isn't it? Who are all these people?

Is there a holiday from school?

(she means: good Lord, these chicks

make me feel old)

I'm sure glad to see you here!

(she means: at least there's one face I know.

I have not told her my name. She says

she doesn't remember names.)

She tells me— voice lowered—

I have to take these pills four times a day,

or I'd die (a solemn nod, blue eyes wide)

I had a seizure and it damaged my brain.

Once she tells me: It was so hard

when it happened, I couldn't go out.

I couldn't remember where I lived.

She's in gym clothes. I go to the pool.

You're such a speed-swimmer,

you and that other guy!

and I can't tell her otherwise.

Just smile and shrug. I'm glad

to see her, too.

Friday the 13th: Leander of Seville

If I believed in anything, like I would say it here!
I keep my beliefs closer to my chest, unless
I’m answering the Belief-O-Matic™’s quizzical call.
Some days I believe all you need is love,
and others in the power of upper-middle-class incomes.
I would like to believe in the healing properties of plants.
But plants are too slow for this. Plants whisper away the day
when healing sometimes TO SHOUT.

Some might say: perhaps if I’d professed a bit
I wouldn’t hurt now. To that I say “pshaw,”
for one gets so few chances to say it.
If God is that God,
He can see your fingers crossed behind your back,
with, on the back of His head,
His mother’s eyes.

Cutting

Solitary, even among the herd,
calf’s loneliness shows more
than its limp.

Stutters out of step, slips
skittish glimpses side-to-side.
Feels your flintknapped eyes
pierce its hide, but plays blind.

Your horse chips in to the fold,
slowly cracks cattle wide,
pries the calf loose.

You rive calf from its kine,
wait for its fear to ease
into defeat.

Crossing

Here's where they indented the riverbank,

cut away grass and wild roses stitching

the hill together, took sand for concrete,

exchanged Gabriel's Ferry

for Gabriel's Bridge,

flatboat and cable

for sky-blue painted steel.

Here, across the river from Batoche

and what remains of Fish Creek

my brother and I would climb

the bank's cut-open face—

slipping, kicking up sand-spurts—

then scoot down the slope.

Scramble up again, slither and tumble

till feet, hands, clothes were sand-brown.

Something had happened in these hills

but the ferry was gone;

we pronounced Gabriel like an English name;

we saw only later that the bank,

overgrown again with grass

and roses, was not meant to look

like this.

flooded, x

In the garden

On the banks of

The flooded river

They sit in a sea of

Blood red tulips,

Share poems of

Girlhood and

First loves.

Surrounded by Mol's taut

Bodies, every nymph sculpted

With firm tiny tits and legs ready for

The dance, last rays of a rare spring day

Dance for the spring starved women,

Shadowing words like pubic wings

And hymens laid open, un-

Whispered, because

We can     now.

Let us

Swim with Leo's beauties

In the pond in the yellow-tuliped

Lake by the banks of the gushing river

And giggle like we did once

Let us offer up a chorus to

The sun and to love

To yellow and to

To blood-red
blossoms.

Wild West Show

Even the great Sitting Bull joined the circus. Fifty dollars a week from Buffalo Bill turned buckskin and blessed feathers into costume, great battles into show. The glory of Little Big Horn played day after day for Englishmen – skin cool and pale as unfletched chicks – to careful claps of their soft hands.

What choice did he have? White man’s lines penned him like stock, and the buffalo gone. Herds that were once three days long run dry as the hard ground of ’85. No meat, no robes, no flesh for the bones of teepees. No dry shit, even, for a fire.

Maman remembered him, proud outside Legare’s store, speaking for the Sioux driven north to their deaths after Custer’s Last Stand. His people like 4,000 buffalo halted on the lip of a cliff and set up camp. Freezing, teeth falling out or broken on bottles. He stood and demanded to be seen. He was a tall man, too, Maman always said, pinching my chin.

In England, France, Sitting Bull would have been as rare as I am on these city streets. Tearing strangers between recoil and fascination at the wild, baffling work of God.

J.J.

The scrapbooks tell a tale

if you can read it:

his interests, points of pride

displayed in clippings from the Valley News.

Steam tractors, threshing crews

in photo after photo

grainily reproduced in newsprint.

Main Street in 1910. Fire in the old hotel.

Webs of small-town connection: anniversaries,

awards, school choirs, bowling teams.

To anyone but himself a partial tale—

episodes, self-contained, out of sequence

like reminiscences over coffee

at the downtown café.

His link to all these weddings, deaths unclear—

a seemingly unfiltered mass of news

gathered in his all-embracing attention.

Or likely, there was more within his ken

than I could ever guess.

Flinch

Seeing those dry pink sockets
where the eyes once nestled
I flinched at first, thinking the dog
mad, then understanding came
as I held out an unsteady hand
and called “Hey sweetheart.”
How fear nuzzled me then
like an old friend. The owner
rounding the corner in house slippers
and pajamas asked if I knew the dog.
As if he belonged not to him, but to
the whole block. And watching,
I could see that he did. Stopping
to sniff their way home, past that bush,
that young boy playing basketball,
pausing to listen for his human’s shuffle—
the pair of them nearing something larger
than old age or loneliness—
in the spring evening scented
with the first lilacs.




----
This is my last May Day post. Thanks to everyone for spurring me on and for your comments. Apologies I haven't commented as much as I'd hoped. Planning a wedding, even a relaxed one, sure steals a lot of writing time. Have a wonderful summer. Hope to see some of these poems in print in the coming year.

This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad.

Finger my machine
Sip it
on the rocks.
It felt that
return, the fell swoop
of my gestures
the bright infected
with my shadows.
My machine does not care
if I spout gibberish
does not correct sense,
only strains to read my fingertip, broken and sometimes, not now,
bleeding through its little canyons.
It recognizes me. The way no one does. No one feels my finger on a hard cold back.
In the movies. A note in lipstick, chocolate, blood. Scraping silently
in defense against something not unlike real love.

Bareback

I was made to mount
a horse without stirrups.
No need of stump or fence rail,
just swung a leg up and over easily
as a man would his wife.

Pointed my nose
to chosen horizon,
let horse sense intention
in twist of spine,
grasp of calves.

Just thought turn or slow
and the horse did
as if its legs were my own.

Grabbed fast to mane,
leaned hard and flew.
Let the pleasure throb of gallop
resound through my bones,
echo from throat:
grunt of familiar thrill.

Never griped about
tetchy mares, spunky yearlings.
Moaned over chapped ass,
balls ridden red-raw.

Riding my only chance
to act captain,
steer my course.

March 7: Thomas

(blind, erasure, with autocorrect)

noble Aquino bit his brothers,
suffered the caresses of his mother
shake him in sin
burning branded creature
concealed ecstasy, a cord, pain
piercing cry, confraternity
gratuitous, tight
philosophy.

knowledge of hidden treasures reserved for those who have flowed.

Drink

Whiskey is flint:
first sip snaps spark,
second catches – my belly
a hunk of dried moss
gnawed by flame.

Tinderbox innards
so hot flesh glows
red between ribs.

No mouth to this long chimney.
Smoke climbs, socks in
mind, memory.

I pour and swallow,
not dousing the blaze
but fanning its fury.

March 8: Duthac

Unlike a side of pork, my body
though just as cured, still,
is not for tearing up to scavengers.

I am the overcooked meat of the English.

I am the spooky mummified cure
for what ails you.

If the bird had been a crow, would it have taken the gold ring,
leaving me saddled
with the pork?
Who knows--crows
have humour
better than yours or mine.

Crows should be in this story.
Streaming from my leathery head, a feather
veil of wiles.

Hair of the pig.
That was it. This man and his golden hangover.
Everything he bought turned to drink, and everything he drank turned to gold.
The eternal cycle
embodied by the golden ring.

This man was a renowned sex addict who,
tied to a fence, dehydrated himself and summoned me telepathically to
pray, also telepathically, also sympathetically,
for his relief. Correction. Actually
he was playing bagpipes in a Dixieland band and got confused.

He made love to a devil named Pete Bog and that was against the law.

My therapist who art in heaven asks me
if I want to get back in the saddle. It's a joke we have
about my tanned hide back there.

This man--where was I?--he enjoyed his "friend," Pete
and regretted it in the morning, wondering
where his full frontal
love had gone. (Did you notice
B and V are side by side?)

Lobotomy Pete is his other name.

That's when he called me in. My name
Is Friday.

I mean Duthac.

He called me
on the wind,
like his kite, a message,
regarding war, like every message worth sending. And on that wind, a very light ("lite") Other White Meat (whole beast of), as a bribe, and a golden ring tied
to the kite end.

I lay them down in the graveyard and said, "Hey, Jude" (that's my therapist's name), take thee this golden pig and slip the vice off the briber's forehead."

And the pig was so dead he did not hear me, but the flies
panicked, but orderly, through the golden ring like
elephants in a Gypsy circus.
They moved like bodily fluid as I prayed there, like single-malt molasses,
reeking of anachronism, looking like barbecued spare ribs.
They looked into all my eyes at once and I knew what they meant.

I am the side of pork.
The side of pork is me.
The golden ring is heaven,
Rolling soundlessly above the thunder
for eternity.

And that is when my body decided.
Never decay.

How can a side of pork thread itself through a golden hoop?
Only angels know.
I followed the ring across the sky
and fed the pig to the birds.

At the hall, naked and smelling of wild beast,
I turned up too late,
offering the ring on a flat palm.

Never mind, he said, my headache's gone.
I remembered my stash of old Tylenol 3s.

Behind him were an array of disheveled not-quite virgins.

You're welcome, I said,
waiting for an invitation
that did not come.

This drunk's gift was not pig nor ring nor orgy. It was knowing

I am a side of pork. Time cures
all beasts.

Cut and run

Lingering stink of soggy popcorn, hooch-puke. Brassy panic of elephants, cackled fat lady laughter, like spectres drifting over dirt circles. Press your hand to the rail and you can still feel the circus cars slinking away, the rubes and their thick wallets waiting down the line.

Buggered off in the dark like a Dutch Henry rustle. Wake to an empty field; not one pony left to ride for help. No posse to raise here, anyway.

All that’s left: sequin winking in tattered grass, my name on a worthless cheque. And this thirst – throat parched as my pocket.

Triptych

I.

It must have been

a jail indeed

to make her feel

now so free.

II.

She tried not to grow

so it wouldn't hurt as much

to be different, separate, other.

But one day

not growing hurt more.

III.

So

THIS

is what

it feels like

she marvels

to be myself,

all the time.

Cowboy

Ten minutes before the spectacle, roustabouts – who could be paying men, except for the scent of exotic shit clinging to them – pull caps low over grimy brows, dig rope-raw palms deep into their pockets and begin their subtle herding. Shoulder and elbow, bump and mumble, women and men don’t even notice they’re being funnelled along the midway.

Barkers knot and toss the lariat: long strand of story, perfect arc of mystery, clinch of promise. Tug in audience and hold it rapt. And the whores, after the last show lets out, dig in their spurs, holler as they ride and ride.

Everyone here a cowboy but me.

5:30 am

Still dark out, woken by a woman
sobbing on the sidewalk. What left her
sprawled there – what breakup, or dreaded
phone call? Her voice cracking like ice
against the hull of a ship.

No one leaned out their window
to yell shut up as they do to the drunks.
Reluctant to ask, we didn’t want to
get close enough for sorrow to catch.

Windows were discretely closed,
earplugs donned as she keened
for all of us, for each catastrophe
we’d tastefully swallowed behind closed walls.

Sunday

[Thanks!]

Blown

Bouquet of balloons in the back seat.
You swat, adding fingerprints
to the latex covering drifting fists
of noble gas. In the rearview I get glimpses of road,
your heated cheeks, the cars nudging
the few feet between us
at the lights. I don’t ever expect more
than glimpses. How we both got a mouthful
of crabapple pulp today when all you were after
was a single bloom. How you substituted dandelion
for daisy when the oldest charm
rattled through your head: She loves me,
she loves me NOT. And started shedding yellow.
Lately, you’ve relied on I didn’t mean to...
Which means everything I own shredded,
everything I own fragile. Like a balloon
floating into the front seat, static
electricity
a stranger’s kiss.

For years I'd lie side-saddle, folded tight as a bat, turned away from whichever brother leapt last into bed. But sleep always loosed my grip and legs gave chase, Alfred and Jules trying to outrun one another to the opposite edge until dawn.

Coyotes my only company, those lonely nights. I tried to squeeze the life from my rangy legs, press them back into their source. But nothing could stunt the determination in my bones, the creeping ache that waited until dark to seep up from ankles, rot through shins. Legs aflame, I drowned my howl in the pillow, fought the itch to thrash at hot sheets.

But I wake the same from this made-to-measure mattress, where I lie long and limp as a lifeless whip: surprised I haven’t dreamt these legs I swing over the side.

The wind of Wenhai

The wind of Wenhai
caresses the valley.
A trickle of water
from a fountain sings
of community
and hope.
Craft the image
in conversation
subject to the funhouse
mirror of language
that expands and diminishes.

-Kelly-Anne Riess

half-hearted

We said we would give our whole hearts

but we held some back

for safe-keeping,

for a rainy day

when we might need it

for our Self without the other.

Now that rainy day is here

and it turns out

these tattered lint-covered

fragments of heart

are no use at all

as an umbrella.

So the rain pours

down and in and through

these gaping holes

where no holes

were meant to be.

In the language of flowers

Rosemary is for remembrance.

That's how it starts.

Pansy for tender thoughts:

Peony, dahlia, delphinium.

Salvia, alyssum, petunia.

Daisy for innocence:

Marigolds and blue lobelias, like Grandpa's.

Love them and they will grow.

Columbine for folly.

No calculation of sunlight, no thought

for the roots of elderly shrubs,

their greedy thirst.

Dandelion for oracle.

I didn't listen.

Marigold for jealousy

of gardens down the street

crammed with lilies. Cruel

in their flourishing.

Poppy for consolation or

evanescent pleasure.

Spindly and worm-eaten, for a short while

they bloomed.

flooded, ix

elle est elle est inondée elle est

inondée par l’inquiétude, inondée

par cette plus inutile des bêtes sombres

qui ronge aux rives de son imagination.

il n’y a plus de sommeil elle ne rêve plus

se tracasse de tout de rien pleine

de soucis elle oublie parfois

où elle a laissé son espoir.

elle est inondée elle est

inondée elle est
elle est 
elle est 

Sand poem page 1

This is the first "page" of something I was scribbling on my iPad with my finger. Amazingly, my regular handwriting is not much different. Sometimes I can't read it myself the next day. My students will attest.

Re-freashed leaves

Here is a draft of a fall poem that I have been working on for a while now. I didn't get to any new work this week but I edited this marginally so:

Leaf Shadows

The trees’ leaves,
freshly-dropped
one-summer loves,
had stuck themselves
onto the pavement of
Ruskin Row, my favorite
street in our walk,
for the quiet arching curve
in our conversations,
when we know
your street is nearing.

Swept away the leaves revealed
surprising shades of bright grey,
outlined epitaphs of their former forms
now afternoon sketches, thin
skeletal lines stenciled onto
the road. You asked if I was paying
attention as I watched them pass
under like water, neck craned.

We were walking
home together on the first of October
--ours is a convenience
of place sort of love--just passing
the bridge, watching
the two riverbanks bathing
in late afternoon sun, tipping
just on the slim edge
of the light
like proffered arms glowing
golden, a final fall

flourish. It was difficult to think
beyond the good weather,
towards a time for untangling

from this love
for this city--you’d say all cities
are images of souls, all loves
a convening nearer nearness--

from my fall
love for the tree’s last grasp
on its purple-basil coloured leaves,
segregating the cold cloud
sharpened sky,

for these concrete leaf shadows, that
tomorrow will erase so easily.

May is an uneasy month

Huddled, we lean into the wind.
We travel mute, the weather
an excuse, trying to understand
the gifts we clutch.
For me, a pair of seer stones
in a patched calico bag.
You, a jam jar of silver water.
We are grateful
as one must be under the spell
of a stranger’s generosity,
but unsure what they mean.

I am learning to read tea leaves,
slip four leaf clovers into the brew.
I fear the stones, what they could hold.
Eventually, we will move away.
You will hide the unsampled elixir
behind a mirror in the attic,
but I will take the stones
unseen, unused.

Waking

An amateur's new reflex camera,

a joke to get them laughing.

An instant clipped from a sumer afternoon.

Who are they? I ask.

They're in a field, row of trees behind them

Skirts to their ankles, white blouses.

And the men— shirtsleeves, suspenders,

hats perched high on their heads.

So easy to mistake their age.

That's Judith, Grandpa's first wife

(looking down, sun in her eyes)

and that's your grandma there

(hand smothers a giggle)

And then the figures lift a little, become

stereoscopic by some mixture

of daylight through yellow curtains,

my mother's voice reciting names,

my eyes' new skill at shifting focus.

There's the surprise:

my grandparents were once young.

If they could just stay like this,

resting lightly on the Kodak paper.

Are there more? I ask.

Brand

Calf knows only browse, suck.
Muck or dust, mother or brother.
Trusts men, until you pinion its legs,
smother its thrash to stand.

Tongue strains, the bleat
keen as a woman’s scream,
eye rimmed white in panic.

Hold iron to flank
until you’ve laid claim.
Until hide smokes,
singe skewers nostrils.

Sick flinches in your throat,
becomes hunger the instant
smell turns to roasted meat.

flooded, viii

Building a Sand-Bag Dike, part two

Sweet and earthy, the scent

of bail twine between her fingers

did she need help tying bags, he asked

but one look had him turn on his heels

one bag and then

another, thirty - forty - fifty he passed 

down the line to

the Hutterite men, strong and sing-song

their voices conspiring to tell a story

he wanted to understand

muscles aching, lungs rejecting

sand-dust, blood coursing hot to his head

he knew to stop

                             but would not 

           'til the dike was done.

.

Upon reading that Viagra is issued to Libyan soldiers

I've been away a few days with the mid-May slump. Here's a very new and rough one (as they pretty much all are).

-----

Dear Mssrs Research and Development,

You have improved the lot
of us. Lives lived to the pure and fullest and
upstanding members of the community shower
gold on you, do your e-
business for you, and always choose
the blue pill. The important part is
choose. Choose. Like a train
runaway. Like a toothless jaw trying.

I wrote you this letter with my hackles.
I could not tell you the names of any Libyan women.
I made my own inner peace with you for a while dear misters,
while forgetting the nameless world.

What ever happened to the angry girl poets of yesteryear?
And those whom exile became, they are no longer
translatable, except by you, misters r & d, and your damn autocorrect
telling me to capitalize at the beginning of lines, mr. developer.
That you've been issuing Viagra to soldiers is surprising
only in that I didn't think of it before.
Wrap my head around a metal pole.
Slap my forehead comically, but of course!
The perfect alibi doctors watsons.
Please prescribe me some pleasing
and we might might as well jump off the little blue bridge,
its tragic beams the better to mark my forehead with intricate lacework,
Mr bridgeovertheriverkwaibuilder, leave us the fuck alone.

Wading Pool, Pandora Park

Strollers stake claims to shade
while kids ride pool noodles, bob
in water wings. Moms up to their
knees cool off, while older siblings
clock pedestrians with supersoakers.

Nothing like free water in summer.
The beach too far to walk, no money
for the bus, these two blocks bordered
by apartments, become a shared backyard.
Tag. You're it.

Each evening, rivulets braid the streets
as the pool drains. Towels flyer
the railings, swimsuits drip.
Come morning, strollers circle the empty
pool, wait for a new jetstream
to be unleashed.

Stage fright

Belly spooks at barker’s voice.
Heart thrashes
like mink fights snare,
broken bird flails
between coyote’s teeth.

A thousand bullet-sharp eyes,
double-barrelled faces,
thousand lungs drum-taut
with held breath.

Swallow fear – the boiled egg
whole in your throat –
pin it deep inside.
Hold the skittish calf,
knee firm on its heaving side,
palm gently threatening
its life-pulse.

Eigenheim

This August day of wind, heat.

Dust from cars' arrival.

This white wooden church, these

steps to twin front doors.

These handshakes, this embrace and kiss

of aunts from far away. This hymn,

my voice faltering on the refrain.

And after,

this path from front steps to graveyard,

these hands holding, this roar

of passing pickup on the highway,

these strawberry leaves among the stones.

This raw earth enclosing my uncle's body.

Our family's name on this stone and this.

This place that holds our story.

flooded, vii

 Building a Sand-Bag Dike, part one

1. Fill the bags only half-way (give them room to br-e-a-the); fold shut or twist twine to close.
2. Never bend more than 20 degrees in any direction while handling - otherwise what you will twist is your spine!
3. Never build a dike over a septic field.
4. A sandbag weighs 20 kilos; move 50, you've moved a ton (unless you live in the States).
5. Dike: maintain a ratio of 4 units wide to 3 units high. You: maintain a ratio of 2 units H20 to 1 hour of labour.
6. Walk on the sand bags gently to ensure a tight fit (be forewarned: you will be tempted to express your anger for the flooded basement, the drowned Honda, your lost dog, and knowing Harry's land is not being sacrificed by this morning's breach).
7. Understand ergonomics. If you lose your homestead and cattle, economics will be at stake ergo hefty health bills will only make matters worse.
8. Don't exert yourself.  (br-e-a-the...)
9. A well thought out dike will have structural integrity, so do integrate those grey cells to your thick and weary biceps.
10. Pray that it wasn't all for nothing.

 Written with the help of/without permission by Fighting the Flood, Manitoba 2011

THE SEATTLE ENGRAVING COMPANY

It's against the law
to remove the dead
from water.

There are rules to everything
ordinary. I take this for granted;
tell her the shape of trees

in the north is no different
than moonlit maples and sweet gum
pyramids on her front lawn.

An august afternoon's wind
interviews us with hushed
declarations—

She says I’m uncouth
because I don't have time
for kids, golf and social clubs, or child brides.

A loon on the lake calls to its partner.
Memory clouds lakelight with embarrassment.
I had wanted to marry and asked

her. Laughter,
ruthless as textured coal
answered me, her meaning rich and slow.

The loon’s partner returns with a song.
It will take years for the echo
to die.

Driver's Ed

Making supper, chopping carrots,
getting ready for kiddy soccer, my dad is
in the basement trying to repair my dryer.

And a teenager ambles in late, because he had his
fourth Driver's Ed class, drops his backpack,
says "I just watched someone die, I think.
(we stop what we're doing)
"I was waiting on my bus, heard
a screech, looked over. An SUV
was rolling and rolling toward me. It stopped
maybe a meter from my bus, right
beside me. A lot of blood. Even
if he was buckled the vehicle
was so smashed up Mom. The roof,
completely caved in."

The bus driver ran over, people
tried to open windows;
a man was yelling to turn off
the ignition - it might explode.
Someone taking pictures on their
cellphone instead of calling 911.

My son stayed on the bus, knowing grown-ups
don't want youth underfoot in
emergencies. Hoping the man was wrong
about explosions. Wishing the driver to safety.
Willing voyeurs to be rescuers.
Watching people huddle helpless, then turn away.

He's been asleep for 20 minutes now,
six hours later. I've checked and checked;
there's nothing on the news.

Reeling

For the residents of Slave Lake, AB.

sweaty fingers
slipping on the car handle

burnt plastic smoke
sour on your tongue

yips
from what could be the dog

following Marie from room
to frantic room or the kids, clutching

their phones
like they were going to text the fire

out, earbuds still in.
there.

the car door
swinging slow slow an accordion

wheezing open.
The light

flickers on. you turn
your head your nose

streaming.
COME ON. NOOOW.

And they spill out the back door
in gouts like a thumb on the end

of a hose
and there is fire in your peripheral

vision as you swing
into the drivers’ seat and stab

the wrong key at the ignition
and there is fire

three doors down and the sky
is full of ash

and sparks
as you scrabble the right key

into the slot
and black plastic smoke

makes you weep
as you rev the engine into screaming

life and it is three slow steps
to the car

and you have idled in the driveway
before, sat and honked

and waited for them
and as you drive

away
from the fire, listening to their ragged

breaths
and small exclamations

at the fireworks of right angles
of wood siding brick vinyl siding

going up
as you drive away

from the tree you mulched
every year the tree and everything

every thing else
you have

going up
you’d like to bottle

their hesitations, their ragged
breaths

and as you lurch onto
the highway

sniffling, trying not to speed
or drift into the other lane

your daughter says
“Dad I’m not wearing my seatbelt!”

Fade (2)

On the footbridge, our brisk walk arrested, we face west

to watch the sky turn pale. A scattering of thin lines

sketched against the pink horizon: seven geese

blacker now and closer, louder. Seven more

skimming treetops, angling down. Geese converge,

each flock a wave of moving wings. Approaching,

they take on shape, heads, tails outlined against

the sky's last slip of color. Feet brake to land.

Noise, a growing gabble of calls, amplitude of honks.

Dark now. We zip up jackets in the cooling air,

thrust hands in pockets. The children want to go.

Not yet, I say. A little longer. Watch.

Noise fades with the light. Geese on sandbars,

in the shallows, settle for the night,

silhouettes against moonlit water.

Quiet now. We shiver.

Working Stiffs

Moths, I thought at first, bumbling up
to the window’s light, their clumsy orbits
as the sky stretched orange overhead and trees
turned to ink. Beer in hand, watching the old man
who shuffles, nightly, three times around the block,
I saw they were not moths, but bees,
bodies dusted with a day’s labour,
legs pollen-globed, tiny wings beating
double-time to lift their load three floors up.
A dozen or more wobble past, drunks
returning to the hive to regurgitate their efforts
for the Queen. These stiffs pull longer hours
than me, yet somehow manage to locate
their pleasure within the dance. Take
one last sip of nectar, before turning in.

Blogger!

Hey all,

As you all probably noticed, Blogger went down for the better part of two days last week. They even deleted some content, which has never happened in the 5 years I've been using the platform...

In any event, I have all the comments from poems that were deleted (they get emailed to me as blogatrix-in-chief), so if you want to re-post them, I'll cut and paste the comments back in...

Thanks! Sorry I haven't been around much of late...too many deadlines and too few hours in the day.

Dr. Clarke's Stomach and Liver Tonic

For the love of posters I work on blood
kidneys, skin. Pen and ink at Grip Ltd.

Temperance is a street full of flask-carrying men.
We sort out type area, black letter,

offset white spaces, touch thick-coated paper,
picture it as romantic. We are the artists,

the scrum assembled in taut formation,
heads bent together, though not solving

any of the world’s problems, or worrying
about the impediments typographically

exhibited: youthful follies, hindrances
to marriage, hearts, deficient virility,

pancreatic problems, or balding. Later, this dandy
skill is enough to buy me cheap therapy—

My own silk shirts worn
with sentimental realism, the designer label

marketing affections like an allopathic application
for nakedness. Opium, belladonna, maybe

someone’s manhood cured by swamp root
and patent medicine, or the bartender,

a muscle man in my own travelling
medicine show. Another pint please!

One patient sleeps in the treatment of beer,
his testimonial confirms the success

of such ministrations. How many draughts
will heal my need for west winds, or mystical

July nights sleeping amidst spruce, black birch,
surrounded by water's nudging tone?

Yom Ha Shoah

all taken from today's testimony of a man who was liberated from Buchenwald at 14 by a 20 yo black American soldier who was also present at today's memorial

"Either we love one another, either we hold one another,
or the seas will engulf us, and the lights will go out."

What happened then
can happen now.

Every April 11th I celebrate
my birthday. The day
I was reborn into
freedom at age 14.
I had never seen
a black man until
that day. I was convinced
angels must be black.

When they asked me
my name
I could only reply
with a number.

What made recovery
possible? Memory.
Impressions left of
a lost family -
4 brothers and my sister
Leah.
My mother. My father.
Warmth and security
sustained me.
Everyone I knew and loved
was gone.

I only saw one of them die.
When I was 11
I was sent to the munitions factory
with my brother Abram, & my father.
Abram was 3 years older.
He got typhoid.
When they loaded him on
the truck I ran for him.
He waved me off. They drove
to the nearby forest.

In the silence that fell
We heard the crackling
of machine gun fire
(I never will forget
that sound.) Was that the day
my father gave up hope?
The truck

returned empty.

old dress

from the back of the closet,

saucer-sized flowers on fuchsia crepe

Danish design, size 5 (European)

I threw it on, over black leggings

buttoned up a black cardigan

wrapped an apron around my waist

grabbed rubber gloves, scrubbed

walls, a floor, a freezer door

my girl smiled, "I love that dress

it makes you look like my mom

not the poet that went to war"

this took me aback,

I'm several sizes smaller now

than when I used to wear that dress

no longer a depressed housewife,

no longer fat, waiting for someone

to come home, to tell me of the world

outside my closet door.

La lune

The moon has broken through

reflecting beauty forgotten on the forked rivers tonight.

I dare gaze into the waters.

First Firepit

Shredded paper to start the blaze
twigs and pinecones entice each tongue
of flame
to lick
then rage.
Roasting food on sticks
- stars above and coals below -
the fire flaming wild but tamed
inside the cage. Sticks
sing, branches snap, greenwood
smokes and hisses. Fuel
spent, the embers ripple
heat and speak of
what they'd do to skin
with red-hot
kisses.

flooded, vi

Tough and weathered, he appears

on the six o'clock news

though his words scratch through

tears                impeding their flow

If I can't move them to safety tonight

The  cattle will have to be euthanized

Evacuation notices taped

to a door, a truck, a shed 

stamped friday the 13th 

and

rain and snow keep falling while

weary men work fingers to bone-

            In the morning

                       they breach the dike.

Common Era

My friend's kid tells me all about

the eras of existence on the planet:

Crusty ol' Crustacious,

Early Jurassic,

then, because we'd already run out of names,

the Late Jurrassic

and then, the Great Extinction.

To him it's all abstract -

the era when his mom and I were roommates

might well be about as far back as T Rex.

And I've survived through many more eras since

with my tough hide and sharp claws.

The Flirtacious, the Kick-my-assic,

then I killed off every single thing I knew

one by one

sent them to the ground to become

after a millennium or so

oil or diamonds

all the more valuable

for having been buried.

While I wait

for new forms of life

to emerge on my planet

I guess I'll just keep on

what the kid says we're doing,

living in the Aftermath.

Hold On

When the pine crashed onto the cherry tree
we wept ferocious as if the loss
was a grandparent or a dog.
No fruit so prized, so ripe
for greedy fingers, gaping mouths.
The man was hired to fell the pine and
avoid the fruit, the house.
We would not have cried for the tart
apples or the even the plums
which confused us each year
into thinking they were apricots.

Thirty years later, midnight,
a wind threatens to lift houses,
toss venerable maples, elms.
Branches splinter. The house creaks.
Chimes a block away frantic in protest,
sirens squall. Between gusts,
I hear my children breathe
from across the hall, even and calm.
Basic biology, this is sanctuary.

Wednesday

April's being good today,

all warmth and possibility.

Boys linger after school.

One a troll, one a Viking.

A mother sits, face tilted to the sun.

A father walks and walks around the soccer pitch.

Batman arrives in a red wagon. In his hand—

and epée? a rapier? Surely a Bat-sword.

Boys walk the ledge dividing sand from gravel.

Survival's at stake. They watch their feet.

Now a girl's in the wagon. Regal in pink sunglasses,

turquoise shirt. Batman pulls, she holds the reins.

Australia

I wept for two months

after coming back from Australia.

How could I live without

the water (the water, the water), the sand,

the sky so much brighter there,

without sunrises on the beach

without toes in the sand?

I researched visas and special job skills list,

wondered if I could pass as a structural engineer,

wondered if I could pass as a Youth on Holiday.

My shrink didn't think moving there

would actually solve anything.

But he'd never been there -

how could he know

about the alien trees, the parrots in the wild,

the surfer boys out on endless waves?

So I get out.

But I only make it

a few hundred miles

in the direction of Down Under.

A pitiful compromise, paradise postponed.

Then I wake up this morning,

walk out to the water

past a purple tree raining blossoms

as the sun paints the clouds orange.

Sink my heels in the night-cooled sand,

watch seagulls surfing the waves.

I lean down to touch a shell

and find Australia.

Coming Clean

from the front cover of today's Star-Phoenix

Because he loved her
Because she was his baby girl
Because her boyfriend was bad news
(a drugseller who injected heroin in her arms
even when she was only half-conscious)
Because of that, because she had just
gotten clean again. Because. Just
because. Her father loaded
his gun. Tucked it into
the same belt he'd
never hit her
with.

Remembered her coming home, telling him
how her boyfriend beat a man with a crowbar
until he lost consciousness.

There was a standoff. He stood. He stayed.
Emptied 20 bullets in her boyfriend's
body. Traced a sign of the cross
in the blood on his forehead
when he was sure
he was dead.

It was a life for a life for a life:
he'd do it again. Trade his
freedom, bloody his hands
for his daughter.
Any man.

Catullus 2a and A Sparrow Poem

Is it just me or did some posts get erased?

Here is something I think I posted before:



Catullus 2a

Passer -- Sparrow

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari,
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi leuare curas!
... Tam gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam solvit diu ligatam.


Sparrow, my darling’s delicate one,
always her little plaything, held fast in to her chest,
to you she stretches out her stroking fingertip
provoking your sharp pecks--
She’s incandescent with desire for me,
but I do not know the joke I could joke to please her,
to make for her a small solace from her pains
so that, perhaps, her heavy burning could quiet.

She can play with you like this,
lightening her mind’s sorrowful concerns.
... This is as dear to me as the golden apple
was for that swift girl who threw them,
releasing her from her long-fastened girdle.


Sparrow

I am anything but a sparrow.
With the swift push up from the poolside
after swimming my shoulders
fit five birds width
two birds depth.
Are they seductive, those twin lines
that sketch themselves
onto the steam-streaked mirror,
my hands raised to braid my hair
dividing the under muscles
that curve down to my breasts?

Early I filled out
the feminine slight swaying
hollow reed body,
never lacked a third
dimension, sometimes
there appears a forth.

But shouldn’t women’s bodies
be puzzle pieces?
Small birds
with soft corners, trimmed
to be fit into things.

Our Home Needs to be Painted

It is a house of collections
housed in old gem jars—
eyelashes in the bathroom,
teeth in the bedroom,
discontinued currencies in the kitchen.

Hair elastics looped around doorknobs,
a forgotten code left undeciphered.
Point shoes stacked in the corner,
dice in every drawer.

The bucket on the deck is there
to collect stardust and wishes
wished on satellites masquerading
as shooting stars. To date, it has only
captured raindrops and glimpses of the moon.

Everything is weighted in luck,
yet we are unsure how to measure.
We place items in our palms,
on our tongues but we can only guess.
Yes, we are lucky, we say, until we are not.

Veracity

The days are fatter, rounder
ripening lush-lipped plums.
The trees are loaded brushes
poised under cerulean skies.
Stand on the stone embankment
a rising river in your eyes.
Birds are feathering downwards
stealing Hansel & Gretl crumbs.
Daylight stretched elastic
weak tea dawn to brass brazen noon;
We'll question the sun's uprising
but in secret, suspect the moon.

burrionis viridis

defying the slate-gray sky

outside her window a Dutch elm

burgeons glossy green leaflets

Two poems

I seem to behind on everything today. This is not unusual. I also apologize for my commenting slipping-- will try to catch up this weekend.

I got a service interruption message when I tried to post late last night. So this is later than even it should have been!

In the meantime, and I'll explain this bit of fluff later:

Two poems

1

Dublin's

Bashful

Mary, Queen of Scots

A steam launch

The Virgin

Red

2

Swedish

Alfred

Steel

By bouncing

They ate it

Be prepared

flooded, v

i

it is less about his death

than his life

these memories that flood me

        fifteen years since his

last breath, my final words,

since

        in the still air, floating,

remembrance of a tragic life

.and words. only words. mine,

holding the hand of his

holocaust body I

whisper

- go

ii

a Holocaust ago

they played at the edge of the Danube

watched bodies float the blue

             children chanting

boy or girl? girl or boy?

but she would be the first to know

that girls always faced the sky

though to this day

she doesn't

know

w

h

y

.

Above Average Temperatures

Blinded by winter’s
inner thighs, young girls
in 80s jumpers stroll the Drive
in squeaky Keds—so much ironic flesh,
I feel old. The first hot day
brings picnic blankets and pot
smoke, novels consumed
on front stoops, all the leisure
a paycheque can afford,
grab another beer
from the vegetable drawer.

Time to start shaving
more than once a week.
Late evening rays
reflect on red brick:
all the pores and cracks
softened. After a long bout
of sleeping alone, it’s not
just the street trees
that need watering.

o my

6'2 of confusion

I love that pic of you that Pat took in the desert-

your weedy mustache, eyes behind ballistics, hard-boiled,

the dust of a shitshow war/marriage carried on your shoulders,

duty, honour, big ideas tattooed in blue on forearms, inky thunder

it's May. the light on the coast is weak.

I wait. patiently. for you.

Small Corpse

Feathers imploding outwards
like flotsam from a shipwreck:
"wreccum maris, sturnella neglecta"
The body lays in state
on the corner of the neighbour's lawn
Decapitation indicates
feline involvement
The wind tenderly ruffles
delicate breast feathers
The grass is inured to grieving
but a bough is sighing mournfully
The ants will pay their respects

Death brings a certain
softness before
the hardening.

Ella Ewing, Absolutely the Tallest Lady on Earth

Papers report the wedding – dress sewn from sailcloth, band any other woman’s bangle – but I’ve never proposed, even though she’s the only one I could kiss goodnight without sinking to my knees. My manager tats her a pretty letter, counts imaginary dollars aloud, but I can’t sign.

Yes, I think of the house we’d share – windows punched high enough to see the view; no ceilings, only sky, above our heads. Simple beauty of proportion in our empty clothes, hanging side-by-side, in the cupboard.

If we were paired for the ark, she’d be my match. But how can I marry a woman I’ve seen only on a Barnum and Bailey poster? (And a drawing, at that.) After chit chat of height runs dry – fear of chandeliers, how to best stretch a shoe – what to talk about?

And children. I’d never pass this millstone to another.

Catullus 70

Catullus 70 -
or
To No One--Nulli, a translation

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

"To no one," my woman says,
"There is no one I would prefer to marry myself to,
more than you, not even if Juppiter himself should seek me."
So she says. But what a woman tells her lust-filled lover
ought to be written on the winds and rapid rushing rivers.



To No One Else
-after Catullus 70

He reminds me of Heraclitus'
forgetful river and although I cannot
cannot have him, I should be able to

remember this, each time I catch
his liquid green eyes
in my palms I write love
on a rock and throw it.
Plunk and splash
in the water, where it will remain.


(The first is a translation, the second is a rough little poem inspired by it.)

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS

Arguments are reasoned with fists
firm as the fritters I’m shaping on the table.
My clothes smell of smoke
and wood. Jack pine and river. Bisco.

I build a fire in the stove and place
my cast iron pan on the top. Here,
everything tastes charred. The mill and store
only a month ago burnt like toast,

now nothing but blackened boots
poking from the earth. I slice
a fat chunk of lard, drop it in the pan.
Archie calls them donuts, dough

formed with a tin cup, then
marked by a hole from another
smaller lid. Where did this
indulgence begin? Who broke

a fleshy mid-section once so heavy
six seamen fell overboard after eating
those fried cakes? Who noticed the cow
kicking the pot of oil, tipping it onto pastry

rolled and ready? Who was that pioneer
that made the first opening?
Sizzle splatters my arm and I carefully
lay the circles into the pan, watch

from my station as the brown
edges up the sides. I’m the ranger
on duty, keeping one eye out for signs
of smoke, the other on the sky.

Metamorphosis

They hang, blue-frosted, in September trees.

A finger's touch removes

the powdery veneer and now

they're satin-skinned, blue-violet,

dark droplets hefted in the palm.

Knife-point finds the crease, opens

a slit. Quick rotation, circumference

complete. A twist, knife-flick

tosses out the stone.

Golden flesh bright

under the blade, firm halves chopped,

mashed, measured.

Slow circles with the wooden spoon

stave off burning. Sugar's added

when the soft mass bubbles.

Stir and stir, the purple seeps

from skins into flesh, lightens,

loses its midnight darkness.

Red-violet, color of velvet,

favorite crayons, the prayer book.

Plum.

Melospiza melodia

song sparrows waken her at dawn

fearful she will otherwise forget 

winter's gone

March 6: St. Colette, Virgin

Nicolette is a plausible name, virginity
a likely state of first breath. Hermitesses laudable
role models, even those who believe themselves
assaulted by bees
and zombies.

Traitors hanged in the public square,
rapists and poachers,
swinging their bulging arms at her
right out of their sockets. While the bees swarmed.
Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz. Slutty slut. Buzz buzz.

Hunched fetus-like, squat and swatting.
Let them go, let them go, my God, my God.
Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz.
She showed the priests her bruises.

There was less awareness back in those days
about anti-zombie strategy.
Today, many reclusive virgins
with ears ringing, whispering surround-sound,
would know just what to do.

Late in the Season

Hearing a chickadee call so late—
the others already flitting in
and out of tree cavities and nest boxes
with insects for their young—
swee-tie, what once was hopeful,
a sign of longer days and leaf out,
now urgent like a child calling
for a lost dog, swee-tie? swee-tie?

Then, the pitch changes—
a response? For all of us
whose clocks run a little late,
I offer another who, after chase,
will gather moss, dog hair and dryer lint
to line the nest, then lift her tail
for that quick cloacal kiss.

Team colors

On the train ride home tonight,
the first day of real tshirt weather,
I'm surrounded by a conspiracy
of blue and red
jerseys, t-shirts, caps,
even a dress
that barely covers boobs
CU -- neckline-- BS

They chatter loudly in pairs,
couples, families,
taking up seats
two by two,
like they will at the park,
sipping colas and Red Bull
as if they need to get
more jacked up.

They pity me perhaps,
heading home without a seat-mate,
just my book for company.

But I was them once.
On my way to a game,
secure in the happiness
that no runs have yet to score,
anything is possible,
the home team could still win
despite recent statistics.
This could be the night
the star player beats his slump.

I don't even know anymore
who that star player is -
I haven't had to care,
haven't had to check daily websites
to keep up with intense speculations
about streaks, batting order, standings.

I had in fact thought until now
that since we finally struck out,
this would be a summer without baseball,
unthinkable as that once would be.

But I see tonight
baseball goes on without me,
surrounds me, befriends me.
And summer reaches out --
in blue, in red --
to pull me in.

allegrias

o guapo guapo mi amigo

mi Mayo

hola hola mi alma mi espiritu

apples, cherries, plums blossom

petals salt, pepper the earth

mi corazón flies flies

all my springs back to me.

20th and P

Slow for a pedestrian clutching her coffee
crossing one lane at a time, and in sunlight
she smiles, spry lean against the breeze, white teeth in a brown face.

Behind us cars honk, swerve around, a screech
coffee splashes on the ground. She
grimaces, raises her cup to me as if to say

"Cheers."

Keeps walking head-high to a downrolled window,
Racist invective, fountain of pennies and a thrown
Slurpee cup. Another spring day in the 'hood.

Fade

The westbound bus is ailing,

lights, air conditioner turned off

to spare the battery. No one complains.

Ceiling vents open to the sweet

end-of-summer night.

Sun slips lower, pastel colors

burn hotter. Late-August blue

grows deeper, the land falls under

a wash of shadow, darker than sky.

Small pools of water in the fields,

gaps of reflected light in the dark

landscape, holes in the black

cloth cast over the world

like the cover of a birdcage:

Shh. Quiet now. Settle down.

And we do, the cool air tranquilizing.

Talk fades to a murmur,

children retreat into video.

You hold my hand.

It's the end of the day. Don't worry

if there's nothing left to say.

Growing pains

Toes cramped inside shoes
from eternal curling.

Ankles, wrists, always bitten
raw by frost.

Throat gripped tighter by noose
of collar with every swallow.

Knees, elbows, forehead,
blued with bruise.

Heart stamped flat
with every vicious whisper
of the Devil in my veins.

The world

is a funny place.
Fly to Vancouver to Beijing reading
En Route about the rise of cerealism—
breakfast clubs after dark. Bowls of pumpkin
porridge with lobster and truffles, steel-
cut oats topped with chocolate pudding.

Opposite page—Wayne
Gretzky sells watches. Read
About elitist private members’
clubs in Hong Kong—similar to people’s homes,
not my home.

Another page—go
to Camont to make sausage
from pig shoulder in the eighteenth-century
farmhouse. The instructor an American
who came to moor her barge.

Along the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia,
a golf course. What a shrine to the old
country. Expect a fickle wind.

And now in Beijing, step over
the thin man missing limbs, sitting
in the street.

* * *

Hello everyone. I've been traveling through China and haven't had regular access to the Internet. I'm back on May 15 and will be posting more then. Until then, here's a poem.

Best,

Kelly

How to Celebrate Mother's Day, part three

1.
Because she sat in the kitchen with the curling tongs, most afternoons. And she spread my hair like a blanket over my shoulders and brushed it until it crackled. And then, section by section, she curled my honey hair. The hair that was just as hers was, when she was young.

And then she would re-tie the sash on my dresses, making it big and pretty.

And she’d send me out to skip and prattle for the newspapermen on the afternoon train, all of them young men new to suits, to pencils and telegraph wires and column inches.

And I know my hair caught the sun like waves on the ocean. The sun and their surprised eyes.

And that Mama saw it from behind the blinds, her hands empty and still.

2.
Because she taught me that bolts of lace and cards of pearl buttons were as potent a message as those punched in telegraph tape.

3.
That Mama wouldn’t let the servants clean the sheets in the guest room. The ones he blackened and stained with smuts from the lab, him falling into bed after a week or more away.

He would sleep for a day or more and look at us, bleary-eyed, when he awoke.

After he left, she’d bundle up the sheets like they were something sacred. And take them down to the basement and scrub them clean again, her soft fingers burning in the soap.

I read how women used to hang the sheets out the window after their wedding night, the blots of blood a badge of purity.

I think Mama’s triumph was keeping his badges, his hard work, his neverending work, all to herself.

4.
Because she stroked my cheek when she was happy with me. Even now, someone touching my pocked face makes me intensely happy.

5.
That when Papa dumped an armful of broken clocks before going away, that Mama got down on the floor with us, even though the servants laughed at her.

She’d taken apart chickens, she told me, a streak of rust across her cheek, a screwdriver in her hand. How different could this be?

(Likely story, said cook, smirking.)

6.
A crock of milk gone sour; you don’t know it’s off until you pour it out. That’s how it was with Mama, those last few years.

But I knew she was sad and drunk most of the time. And I didn’t say anything to Papa.

I didn’t say, “I know you love Mama. And if you come home for a week, a week or maybe a month at home because you love Mama, she will be a little bit better.”

7.
Because she smiled crooked. And often, when we were little.
Because her happiness was stitched into Papa’s shirts
and he never knew it. Because I see now that she was young
and foolish, when she married him.
When she died.

Flooded, iv

Monday morning brought camouflaged men

to his door, stating he should make sure the tank is full, and

-don't forget your medication and a change of clothes-

but forgot to ask if he had anywhere to go.

Door to door the troops moved onward

the roar of military trucks battling with the music

played over loudspeakers to the weary

dike builders on the  banks of the Assiniboine .

And the rain came down with no sign of ceasing

as the river snaked its way through southern cities

and what used to be shades of green and gold 

mosaic patches on the Manitoba prairies.