may long

what is it about digging deep
into the soil and clay we came from

planting annuals that will bloom hard
a summer and leave their tired root corpse

behind. today it was the red sallies
my grandfather made me promise I'd keep

along the driveway, my grandmother's
favourite, he said. they were never

hers, they were his snorted my aunt
once. they can laugh about it

in heaven, I guess. we are still planted
loosely here, slow-blooming our short

seasons before we are planted, dug deep
into the soil and clay we came from

Dragon mother

Her daughters are the scales 
shimmering across her heart
like lockets.

Her sons are phantom limbs
that wave in her dreams.

Down the street, a nail gun
claps.

Down the river, Leviathan
sing her name.

SUPER FRESH ASIAN MARKET

the aisles are full
of super fresh asians
pulling their produce
in super fly carts
ten kinds of pocky
four kinds of fish sauce
biscuits I've never seen
chicken that's not
and domo origato
is Japanese not Chinese
it's the wrong kind of
Asian for the Super Fresh Market

Through a glass

No one came to take our order. At least we have wine, I said. She poured some for each of us, saying nothing. I looked around and behind us to catch a waiter glancing our way. At other tables, people ate salad, then veal, then petit-fours. Then they left, singly and by twos. The lights dimmed. She didn't seem to mind. She looked out the window, at me, out the window again. The candle sputtered and smoked. Do you think, I said, and stopped. She rolled the stem of her wine glass between her fingers. The place was quiet as a closed book, quiet as liquid pouring into a cup, quiet as rain when you're not even sure it's raining. Her face was like a windowpane with a dark sky outside. She looked at me through the Merlot and said: You know, this is what God is like. A good wine, the kind you dance around with adjectives but never quite describe. It was the only thing she said all evening. Her face rippled in the candle smoke. She put down the glass and looked at me. Waited. Just waited.


[bit of a switch here, style-wise, but I have a cluster of prose poems in my MS and this might be a "friend" for one of them]

Call to worship

The first violin punctures

my abdomen, tom toms pound

my breast. I wish

a chrysalis. Silk, come

cushion every throbbing bone

but my temple.

The electric

guitars scream

commands to bow and kneel

and climb an altar

pouring blood. Beside 

my heavy arms,

closed-eyed

strangers in rapt

attention to the urgent voice

that clings to my skin,

longs to peel me.

The jazz singer’s dobedodas

float to the aromatic loft,

her blue lines scrolling above 

my to-dos leave 

my body intact.

Invite my cords

to fly along.

(Joanne, I promised you a poem once about how music makes me feel. Here it is!)

millefiore 8

into the land it takes
great courage, great courage
for you to love, again

rain's sister

life stopped like a clock.
there was a silence even in the noise,
the vinyl-covered despair of waiting rooms
and empty-toothpaste-tube interviews

everything was earthquake
every box was coffin
quicksand handshakes touched her:
nothing pulled her out

the sky fell, the earth sank
a tidal wave drowned itself
a fire was consumed by fire
stars starred stars

all the lights went out
all the words left
air was without breath
and somewhere a tree fell: everybody heard it

Drawing lessons

The way my dad taught me

to draw houses:

two sloping lines down

became the sides of a roof,

a triangle on the end - a gable.

A single

door. One window on each side

as if all things were equal.

We drew out

page on page

of bungalows; no room

in our imagination

for second stories, no attic

for our forgotten mirrors, 

our invisible hats.

From him, I learned

that things in the distance

grow small. Some sides

will always remain

invisible.

The way my dad taught me

to draw people:

a series of interlocking

ovals; erase

the lines

inside.

potluck

what would comfort and feed a family who has travelled
six hours from their reserve to attend
their daughter's murder trial? could there be a recipe
for anything that wouldn't taste like dust?
I settled on soup, smudged with sage, soaked
beans, chopped vegetables, set the pot
boiling and simmering

the boiled hambone for the soup
was discarded uneasily

and I packed a box with a rose on top.
we honoured her daughter
with a dancing scholarship
from a fund begun to honour
a little girl who had taken her own life
but not before she'd asked her mother
"where are all the brown girls, why
am I the only brown girl dancing?"

I want a world where brown girls dance.

instead, Daleen's father tells us that the women
had to leave the trial today, as graphic detail
of the violent murder unfolded from a witness.
the judge has promised he will give warning
to the family from now on, and he didn't press charges
when Daleen's auntie stood and threw her shoe at the defendant.

I want a world where shoes are for dancing.
where soup isn't salted with tears.
I want a world where brown girls dance
and cook soup
just because.

deflated

The Infinity of My New Blue Horizon Without You

bird chipping away like a car alarm.
summer sun diluted by winter wind.
an abandoned nest at knee-height
empty as your promise. the shed
is falling-down drunk in broad
daylight. narrow daylight,too
and the fence you built sags
and wobbles along the beds
you cheated me of by not
measuring twice cutting
once. wandering eyes
never gauge so well
the distance. the
law of diminish
ing returns,it
insists I end
without say
ing how I
really
truly
feel
-
.

Chronic pain

for Ruby Lou

What shall we wear 

to our nervous breakdown?

A tiara and red lipstick. 

I'll bring the champagne!

There’s something about a pillbox

hat; maybe we’ll channel Jackie O.

Why not diamonds? (It all depends on 

where our flashbacks take us.)

Pearls are always a sane choice. But what if 

the white coats lock them up?

No, not pearls. When we twist 

the string, it snaps. They roll. Trust me,

we’ll be chasing 

those crazy little balls for years.

(Based on a friend's Facebook status and resulting comments.

I feel like it needed a weighty title to offset the silliness, and to make it fit with my Roads of Stone collection, but I'm not sure this is the right one.)