lying in the dark// Susan

I lost my love on the highway,

black pounding our bodies, squeezing

divergent landscapes - car,

road, dirt, skin - together so

tightly. We drove

an off-road vehicle but we were on-road

kind of people. I knew happiness then

the way a bird knows her young

in an instant. I loved him in the quiet

of the SUV. The smell of hard work

rinsed and settled on his skin, his cheeks

as soft and white as sleep. I drove,

one hand on the wheel, the other caressing

his inseams. Isn't it funny

how we are all afraid of the dark? Sure,

you can say you're not

but who believes you? I was wearing

a blue satin dress, strapless

to show off my pilates-arms, which he nibbled

as I gripped the wheel

and him. This is how love hits you:

like a late-night collision,

a chance encounter, a turn

you take to fast. Blood scattered

like the contents of a purse

across the pavement. My love

flew off into the night.

I shone:

my arms so tanned and lean,

my dress lit up by headlights.

I thought I was on fire. I cried

deep into that boomy sea of pitch and tar -

I'm not afraid of you.

I lied.

Flower

Only eat flowers when daddy says so.

Don’t trust me on edible plants,

bird identification, or Chicago style. I’m hopeless.

Don’t trust him on grocery shopping,

buttoning women’s clothing, or exchange of pleasantries.

Actually don’t trust me on those either.

I guess what I’m saying is: Trust No One,

a phrase you heard often and early,

Agents Mulder and Scully batting their eyelashes

on the complete DVD set trying to keep me

awake in the chair at 4 a.m.

Dandelions, he said—your dad, not Agent Mulder—

are completely useful plants. You can eat them all up,

once you dig and scrub up that ass-bastard root.

And he tried to feed you the petals, tiny strips

of that same delicate fibre better flowers make their

better petals of. You didn’t like it. Good on you.

Now, if you ever meet a poisoned apple,

or an evil stepmother,

you will know what to do.

Dear Radar,

You were the Korean War Cassandra, except that everyone believed
when you said Choppers. Incoming.
weary voice older than your Iowa innocence
You bore all that bad news on your skimpy frame

Today you’d be diagnosed with exhaustion, army fatigue
Bed beside the only phone, your sleep must have been piecemeal,
eyelids fluttering at all those midnight flash-lit sneaks
into medical records, liquor cabinets
And still you were up every morning to bungle the bugling

They stunted your growth: everyone’s younger brother, cuddly confidante
Your suspended childhood their link to the pristine,
before gore and grief numbed run-on days

Were you playing along – the teddy bear, grape Nehis
just part of a greenhorn schtick?
Because I know you were wise, even wily –
that Jeep you mailed home piece by careful piece –
though skittish around women

But when I imagine you stateside, after, you’re not anyone’s pet
You’re worldly, capable, standing taller in your small shoes

Sincerely.

Secrets of Motherhood

dedicated to all the mothers of 1885

1.
When the cervix stops dilating
The heart begins.

You will be stretched thin.
You will always be enough:
you will never be enough.

You will carry this hole inside you
always.

2.
Umbilical cord: the mother's end
never goes away. When cut, it
recoils invisibly back inside.
Constricts the breathing,
other times the heart.
Warp and weft of intuition.

The baby's end dries up.
Falls off.

3.
Uterus: the size of a grapefruit.
What you know in your gut.
Source of life, the Great
Mystery:

to bleed, and bleed, days on end,
and yet
not die.

This is how you are a mother.
Look what you can bear, and
still stand upright.

4.
Learn when to bear down with pain.
Learn when to just breathe.

Know it will ebb, but
never cease. What you have
started has no end.

You cannot be
undelivered.

Swimmers

At night our bodies separate
and come together again, the blue
blankets rolling, lapping
at our shifting limbs like waves.

I depart and return to the shore
of your body, my left leg
meeting your right, our rivery veins
tracing parallel tattoos up our calves.

Divided by sleep we find different
lovers and streets to walk down
before returning to the familiarity
of pancakes and coffee. Just before

you wake, I catch your eyes, darting
like fish in the ocean of REM sleep,
go still as you come to the surface.

Bathroom: Claw-foot

steam lifts up slick porcelain walls
off the dust-specked surface of water
bending every colour through such tiny prisms
into the general air of the one room yet to be cleaned

sleepy in the bath I fade out of solid state
dreaming a hundred rainbows all possible
you and you all rise as high
as the happy cool of the room allows

up through the hoop that hold the curtain
up wrap the bulb that makes day of night
up to the poorly painted ceiling
and there

like a balloon meets a pin
a drop again
to wake in the liquid gone tepid

First Entry

Toronto, Saturday, 28th March, 1885 Received late this evening...wire from Lt.-Col. A.T.H. Williams, that he had been authorized to raise a Battalion for service in the North West and directing me to join Captain Winslow at Millbrook and raise a Company from Cavan and Manvers.

Showed Mother the wire myself,
it seemed the thing.
She put it on the shelf;
pressed my hand, but didn't cling.

And mayhap she finds, one hopes,
comfort in the stripes I earned
drilling hard with scopes
and barrels in sun-soaked fields: I learned
the ropes.

School has been fulfilling,
- halfway done my law degree.
Summer next, God willing
----I'll be home and turning twenty-three.

But first, quelling a rebellion will be my lot:
Not the worst. And Mother took it sportingly, I thought.

*** yeh - slow news day :) ***

Louis Riel's First Girlfriend
Reads the papers in Montreal when her husband is gone to work.
Calls it self-defense, for Mother leaves articles out
when his name appears.

Her parents quick to end that courtship - young half-breed Turk
His priestly studies, French heritage and sincerity clouded
by his lineage. Her tears

have long since ceased on his behalf but sometimes
she wonders: would he have led

rebellions in two provinces, if they'd wed?

Poem for my poor hands

from blank to cat scratch blanket

greasy teenager’s to bone-dry post-birth

cracked creased crazy

bitch’s

----

I could go on but won't at present.

Dear Henry,

I still blanch at any mention of the Sea of Japan
Your primetime death the tragedy that dimmed my childhood,
taught me the word injustice, and its blood-bitter taste

I’ve chosen to remember you as you were,
an uneasy leader, itchy in uniform, in charge, in decision,
hiding that big heart under your fishing vest

You had your own wobbly way of making them fall in

Your replacement, Potter, a bureaucratic wonk,
didn’t have your laugh lines, your cornball command

I’ve long-since forgiven your infidelities,
all those whippet-thin nurses with their deft hands,
And I’m sure Lorraine has too.

Sayonara.

Thirty-day pass: 1. Departure

This is your final call.

Rush through the echoing rotunda,

trampling brass leaves into stone floor.

Backpacks bouncing on our shoulders.

All passengers should now be on board.

Shock of sunlight as the train leaves the station,

escapes the city, picks up speed.

You try buttons on a new camera,

I stare across sunflower fields.

We are farther east than we've ever been.

We hear there are lakes upon lakes, there are towns

like Sioux Lookout, Parry Sound.

Leaving the known landscape, Red River behind us,

we watch. Something new will jump out at us soon,

and we'll snap it with a quick Look!

and shutter click. Over and over,

all the way to the coast.

another good woman undressing//Bree

another good woman undressing
in a dimly-lit motel, fresh sheets by the hour;
sinning in pearls is still sinning.

she combs her auburn hair, watching
the window from the corner of the mirror for his jaguar,
another good woman undressing.

she unbuttons her chiffon blouse, fingering
the edge of skin where nipples rise like tiny flowers
(sinning in pearls is still sinning).

as expected, he arrives, heavy-breathed, apologizing,
he's eager to devour
another good woman undressing.

but interrupted by a motel maid changing
a light bulb, her post-seduction moment sours -
sinning in pearls is still sinning.

she's comforted by the signs of other women cheating,
they are always in need of a shower,
another good woman undressing.

she leaves the motel well-fucked, cursing
the maids self-righteous scour:
another good woman undressing,
sinning in pearls is still sinning.

Dear Hot Lips,

I suppose I should call you Major Houlihan,
or at least Margaret, but the truth is
you never quite commanded my respect
Even though I admire flinty ambition,
any woman with those army brass balls

It couldn’t have been easy to stand that high
and mighty ground when every joke was on you,
and no sisters to lean on in the officer’s mess

But Frank Burns? That quivering, chinless priss?
Was it your shared hard-on for rigid discipline
or his limp submission?

I’ve always hoped it was simple human need:
the comfort of any body when the shelling is close,
heavy choppers on the way

Still, there was a time I’d picture that olive drab turtleneck
clinging to my own some-day curves
And I still find a certain strident femininty
in snug green trousers and combat boots

But I wonder, was it enough for you – or did you wish
to hold that scalpel rather than slap it into a man’s gloved hand?

And I’m curious to know if you ever stroll instead of march,
unzip your face into genuine smile
Because that time Henry kissed you – full and sudden on the mouth –
I saw you let go of the wheel, just for a moment,
stunned by the thrill of freedom

Sincerely.

But the Rats Love It In Swift Current...

Tuesday, 21st April We have been drilling steadily since we came and are now in a fair condition to fight, if it should be necessary. The men, I think, are not sorry to leave this place (Swift Current), as there are only half a dozen houses here, besides the railway buildings, and it is a tiresome place to live.

West of Winnipeg, the ground was level
as the sea. After a day, Brandon
gave way to land slightly rolling.

Moose Jaw was the nicest site
for a town I'd seen since home.
When we got to Swift Current

a light rain and high winds
made camping disagreeable,
despite the shelter of a basin

surrounded by higher land.
The winds here are severe.
And I had to march the men

out of the Indian encampment
close by, where they all
fraternized as if on a pleasure trip.

If MacDonald had not had the luxury,
the speed of so many rails
none of us would be here on these barren prairie trails.

***

A Two Week Lull
Three days after we sent Middleton
packing, we lost the last two men
who had been slowly dying, their families
gathered round with rosaries and drawn faces.

Riel
still hopes for peace; he spent the entire
battle, arms spread like Moses,
praying for victory. He promises
a miracle - perhaps this two week

peace is just that. Word has come
back: many of the Cree deny to fight,
though individual warriors wander in
each night. They know that just the same

They will all be held in blame, if
our battle is lost out west.
Half-breeds doubly cursed,
Doubly blessed.

The winds rise. I've made my peace
-------with family, God, and gun.
Prayed good use of the 32 rounds
-------left of ammunition.

Katherine

A woman needs to feel the heavy pulse
of steel, the throb of bullets in a gun.
Protection always fails in fucking, bolts
come loosened under years of jerks. I've done
my time in psych wards slowly coming clean;
I've washed away the blood I drew in search
of happiness - some fake suburban dream.
I need a touch as soft as rain, I thirst
for pools of curves, a landscape fresh that flows
from my hip bone to hers. I lap such lakes!
While men don't knock, they enter even though
the door is closed, my woman knows to wait,
her fingers circling the lock. My skin,
these walls of longing, part to let her in.

Girl brushes doll’s impassable lips

First learn this:
imagining what is not there
pretending what you are not.

If it’s made of atoms, you will figure it out.
If you can stick your hand in it, whack your head on it,
put it in your mouth, or get your nose stuck to it in the cold.

If it’s not there, though, it’s worth working at.
You have a toothbrush, and a baby, and the baby
has no teeth, but you can brush them anyway.
Next step: loose the toothbrush.
Then the lips, then the baby. Ible as well as able.

I like to see this kind of initiative.
You’re such a hard worker!

That’s what I’m supposed to say these days. I read it on the Internet.
Never: you’re so smart,
because some day you won’t be smart enough
and you’ll assume mommy was wrong all along and actually you’re dumb.
I should know. This happened to me
in grad school, forced to employ
different-coloured paper clips
to prove my creativity.

Back to you though.
I’d recommend something tangible in-between tooth-brushings—
maybe carpentry or electrical work.
Electrons pulse so very tangibly they’ll burn your baby down.

Susan

Oh I'm so bad at this whole 'housewife thing,'
the cooking, cleaning, matching towels and sheets.
Sure, watch me drown in domesticity.
Just notify the hunky life guard - she'll
be here all week. I always count on men
to up and leave. My daughter sees my falls
in love, my spills in lust. Alone again,
it's just us two, she's perfect, almost all
I'll ever need. But who'll appreciate
my heaps of lingerie? The virgin, tart,
and even Lois Lane? It's sad: my waist's
ten times to small to match this bloated heart.
I'm sick of new beginnings, absent ends;
the road to love is slick with hairpin bends.

(trois)

Four, he turned
...............Four -
...............we pitched a tent in the back yard
...............and stared at the stars thru the tepee-like opening
...............Il me demande le nom de chaque étoile
...............et, comment loin sont-ils?
...............y sont ici, bonhomme
...............dans la tente avec nous
...............ce beau soir d’avril
.
At least, it's what i wished
when i wished upon a star tonight,
another moment or two
with the little boy who
turned four
.....sans moi
aujourd'hui.

Long Distance

It was a talky day,
all full of your kids’
move to Texas—
funny, them
all becoming nurses
now our own nurse
is gone.
Since Kay died …

Reaching out over –

I was gonna say wires,
but phones have none
these days –

touching the sister
we can, one at a time.

So good of you to be here
so long, staying months
through the decline and falls
of the fun one, the one
with four grown kids
and decades of hospital
hall miles on her
feet, a healing touch
right there except
when her body
mutinied and we
could only take turns
testing for our own
catastrophe.

You’re clean for now,
under intense observation
like all of us, so far
only two lost our beans –
kidney beans, a joke –
get it? What’s eating me?
No more of the same

I hope. Running out
of spare parts,
hoping the recipe for this
mess got lost in the months
since we took
our turn on the table –

not you, but me
and the other one. Two hit,
two missed. So we talk

and do the waiting over
and over again,

thanks to modern technology –
anything’s possible.

Bedroom: White-wash

Around the room various white cloth and wood,
paper, ceramic, suitcase - eyes pause long minutes

while marks appear. A new alphabet of knick and smudge
recorded in a dictionary of accidental bodies

in collision with furniture. All white surfaces
scuff with association.

Inside, tightened to a fist, my heart
pounds slow regulars against my inside bones

leaving marks of its own: finger print,
bruised plaster, the hole where the clock once hung.

From what I can decipher
everything is accounted for.

10pm


All those restless years of lying in bed
with newly-minted teeth, laughter
and the MASH theme rerunning up the stairs
A bedtime timeline that hived off the youngest child –
whispering spelling homework, petty playground anxieties,
into the hall-light half-dark

How I’d wish for the hot stab of an earache,
some small latenight affliction, to admit me
to that wonderland of big sisters and grown ups,
the bag of jujubes passed along the chesterfield
and Hawkeye and Hot Lips with their khaki slapstick

Even now I still hear the phantom:
da-daaaah de de de daah-daah
But there’s no 4077 on channel 12
only cheap Hollywood gossip, reality plastic surgery
There’s no magic left in 10pm, just weeknight ache,
the sticky littered sidewalk after a parade’s gone by