The Moment

Rarely do we catch
a leaf fall from a branch,
the moment when before
becomes after. When what’s left
of the baby's umbilical cord
starts to shrivel and shrink,
a rare mushroom we find
on the change table,
a familiar pink knot
in its place.


---
Dear May Dayers,

I think this might be my last post.
Congrats to you all for finding time to do what you love.
Hope to see these poems elsewhere in print soon!

Plum Blossoms

For two weeks, the street fleets
with pink blossoms, clustered petticoats,
a line of chorus girls kicking their skirts
overhead. Branches stacked with marshmallow globes,
leisure suit’s disco balls. Cumulus clouds
that open into thunderheads, the pom-poms
of boutonnieres and cheerleaders letting you know
what you had hoped for has arrived.
How grateful am I to those
who planted these trees sixty years ago,
not knowing who they planted them for.


---
A brand new poem, as in 53 minutes old!
Cherry or plum blossoms. Any ideas how to tell them apart. These trees bloomed late and had huge pink clusters. Thoughts?

Charlie Brown's Teacher

Even those who don’t know the reference
imitate the algebra drone,
the wah wah wah wah,
as they plunger mute their ears.

Stoppered slide of a trombone
that blots out dates and chalk,
my mother’s voice on the phone.
Failing to hear the variables
of her day, then wanting her to share more.

But how can she, if I can’t remember
her insomnia, new haircut, the surface offerings
that might have opened into something
and didn’t when I was wah wah wah wah,
not listening.

Cormorant

An oil slick apparition, silent V
that skims the highway till one
gets sucker punched onto asphalt by a semi.

Its long neck extended, wings flap for purchase
on the dotted yellow. I swerve and still
the right tire connects, hits feather, trips bone.

I open my mouth and squall.
The car rocked by traffic speeding past.

Already, the mind at work, distancing.
So this is how it happens. All the roadkill
we pass on the way to work
and try to resurrect back to skunk, cat.

Try to shirk our claim in we, in accident.
But it doesn’t work. Every black shape a trigger.
Windshield wipers, bent umbrellas
sprout primaries on top of garbage cans.

Black feathers rise up to join the flock, fall
on the cars that come after.

Hermit Crabs

Stuffed into shells they’ve outgrown,
their soft bellies hang out like beer guts,
as they wait for better real estate.
But the next-size up,
the cream-coloured dog whelks,
have all been pocketed, serve time
on bathroom shelves.
While the hermit crabs hide
under barnacle-crusted rocks,
brandishing their one big claw
like a man with a cane
trying to defend himself.

Green

Walking the trails, I used to see green.

Now it’s cottonwood, birch, the bottle brush
of Douglas fir, hemlock’s hangdog mullet.
All the identifying features pop out with jazz hands:
look at me, I’m a--

Look up, you tell me.
Not for nests or wildlife trees
with their cavities and loose bark
but up. Blue sky overlaid
with leafblot. Edges rippled
like a potato chip.
Alder.
Dammit.

How can I turn it off?
Get back to shape, colour?
See moss on rotten logs
without thinking step, haircup.

Look beyond name, container,
to the energy that rests there briefly
before cycling on.

Pigeons

Who doesn’t hate pigeons and their sleek
iridescent throats that flash pink then green
like a neon brothel. All strut and coo
in red ankle boots for bread crusts.
A pilgrim’s pet let loose, they streak
the eaves with their milky affection.
Their advances we shoo, spike, and still
they cluster. Claustrophobe our feet.
From rocky cliff to concrete
an easy evolutionary leap. Abundance,
their only crime. Seen for the first time
a child might even love a pigeon. A little seed
and it will eat from your outstretched hand.

Chickens

Through sawdust wet with urine and shit,
the chicken dragged its broken leg, pink and package-ready.
The other chickens using it as a springboard
to brawl their way to fresh water,
the meager half bag of feed we found
and wrestled into the pen of meat birds,
who hadn’t been fed in five days.
The owner had buggered off and now
they were ours to tend till the SPCA stepped in.
Bethany in her rubbers, swarmed by beak and claw
while we held up the mesh frame,
held our noses away from the stench
that buddy would have sold for organic.
Debating, we took the injured chicken out,
and put it in a cardboard box in the garden.
All afternoon we chased the cat off it,
gave food, water. At night, we put it in the shed
and left the light on, like you would for a child
afraid of the dark. And in the morning,
without the heat of the others, found it dead.


***
Hi everyone! I'm happy to be posting my first poem. My goal is to post for three poems a week. Not all of these will be brand new. Some are poems I wrote in January and February that I'm working hard to revise. Hope that's not bending the rules too much. Look forward to the frenzy. Bren