Unwinter

Grey spring, crawling
out from under the snowbanks with undulating
limbs, a blind tick seeking
summer-skinned heat. Fingered
by frigid winds,a moon-cool

sun. Winter floured the boards
pervasively with dust, rolled
everything flat, a thin and cracking
crust reverberant with promise
of sour small berries and narrow green

apples, black-specked and worm-eaten. Birds
shrill at all hours from bare
branches, and do not build
nests. We are slashed tires and cracked
cellos. Unrinsed wine glasses left

overnight on the table.

Unbottled joy (an ode to Prozac)

if future pain

should point a sideways finger

at this encapsulated zest

forgive the risk I took

to see you blow me a kiss

throw yourself into the wake

of bygone boats

chest out with squeals of

catch me

where weeks ago

were covered ears & eyes & tears

in corners where

even the TV looked dark

bursting with

God’s got it

today you twirl your way

to the altar  

throwing arms wide

for Jesus

a yes grown flesh

motherhood: denied

they couldn't have my womb, I said,

through the popping pain of cherry cysts

moon after month after year.

it is mine, it is me

where possibility lives, I said,

in hope and in pain.

scars now hold it in place, womb

melded to muscle and fibroids,

to organs less important to me than -

now I await menopause in hope

that these days in pain might go away (?).

lying in bed these many hours

frida keeps me company,

and between sweating bouts of agony

I rise to give birth with words or paint

to my babies, determined that my centre too 

can be whole and give birth to beauty.

*the 2nd piece for my collage, a picture of Frida Kahlo

Zoo (rewritten)

You love that the clown fish can change size, change sex, change colour. Protected by its own sugary coating, it lives under the anemone’s toxic sting. 

We know where you live.

Wildebeests gather in herds for protection. The antelope who stands out is the one the lions snatch.

We work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer, and diabetes combined.

Boa constrictors can stretch jaws wide to swallow rabbits whole. You can't wait to show me photos.

We have your son.

Everyone knows cheetahs can outrun us, but that a peregrine falcon can fly 320 kilometres an hour, fly into the sun, fly until he becomes invisible – I know this because of you.

We will make sure he will not be able to care for himself or others for as long as he lives.

Thirty-two acres a minute, you can’t stop saying, thirty-two acres of that ape’s habitat destroyed, every minute; and you can’t see the rest of the primates for your tears.

We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation.

Your hand in mine, we watch the newborn hummingbird, smaller than a penny, lick 13 times a second with tongue shaped like a W, taking in its wishes, on wings iridescent as bubbles.

note: Italicized words adapted from the NYU Child Study Centre Ransom Notes Campaign and the Autism Speaks “I am Autism” transcript


Hello from Sage Hill! :)

riding home in a rainstorm

teardrops blink open pavement
jellyfish sting bare skin
jello-words slide
out of my mouth, black indelible
poison shot from electric
fingertips. porcupines

would show more kindness. thunderstorm
impotent thundering
above and no bingo-ball lightning
eccentric, a cracked
bulb swinging a thin

filament in a darkened
room. air is cold and low
on my face, bike pedals thrum
and headlights bounce like
Atari's Pong, erratic

and fat against
a final wall
cement smooth
and humming tires.

River 4

the ice on the river has cracked and floe'ed. scatter the earth. prepare the seed. dig deep. you are the plough horse. winter has rusted your flanks. winter has clanged cold the iron bit, the halter, the cultivator, the hoe. the hay had begun to mould anyway. you shake out into the prairie sun. spring's reins release you from cold quarters. to the field. to the wide open fields. "hey up," your master says. you part the old earth. there are buds now. in the willow trees.

Gallery

She thought of it as taking
a chance: hanging pieces
of her life from a bush
in the shade in this tiny park
scenes from an album (of what
occasion, she wouldn't say
although it looked happy)
glossy prints bordered in white
two holes punched, loop of yarn
hung in a gallery of twigs
the same faces recur
in pairs, foursomes, a group
(her family or another's?)
she hung them unmarked and left them

snow fell in the night
one picture caught on a branch
lay flat, covered in white
the next day she saw it
she was torn between admiring
the perfect frosting of snow
and wanting the image revealed
a sweep of her finger would clear
it all away— or should she
uncover only half?
she grew nervous, not wanting
to be noticed, unable
to decide. Finally
she touched a corner of the picture
with one finger
the merest touch
that tilted it a little
the snow began to slide
she counted to three
and let go

Sweet Hereafter

The grandfathers sit around in heaven smoking white pipes
with dogs fetching slippers and one, he say, tapwe Jack
we should get the kids together down there to build or mend
fences and then the grandmothers they call everyone
for dinner (it's always dinnertime in heaven, one big
feast) and the kids who get to play with fire now
alla time, well, they light all the candles in the night sky and dim
the moon as the mood takes them
and sometimes they dance before dinner
tableclothes billowing in all kind of colour eh,
and the bannock, well,
she never burn.

River 3

they broke the earth, spring in, spring out. tall those blonde Swedish men. big hands they worked the land. teamed horses. teamed together. plough and Percheron. scattered the wheat seed. seed cleaned by hand, sowed by hand. broke the bread of that northern land. the north Saskatchewan. the Battle River. sweet waters. sweet grass.

COL 2 - NYY 0

It would have been harder

to choose who to cheer for

if my boys had been out

on the field.

But it's been 20 years -

am I supposed to

go wild for names

I've never heard of,

players brought in 

from rival teams,

just because 

I once loved

the boys who wore

those pinstripes?

Do I root for

empty jerseys

games gone by

the life I lived

in a faster city,

boys who wore

loose suits and tight ties?

Do I betray

this new life I've built

crying for old players

old colors old days?

Or is clapping when

pinstripes strike out 

disloyal to the girl I once was,

the boys for whom I wore

my heart on my sleeve?

So hard to remember

boys are gone
girl's a woman

players retired

stadium blown to bits

one gray day off season.

What do we do 

now that we wear

civilian clothes,

without a next pitch 

to lean in for

under the bright lights?

trees mushroom out of stars what was that wonderful descriptive phrase I thought of while staring in the mirror at my midlife crisis averted by a sudden detour around the potholes everywhere you turn some big enough to swallow Philadelphia cheese steak your claim now before it's too late grows the hour where we planted minutes only seconds ago tick talk tick talk about what really matters can only get worse before it gets better late now than never

Afterwards

And now I have things I can't get rid of.

This is how it goes: the bookmark
with your pencilled message, signed
with a flourish on the initial B—

the photo of you on the summer trail
by the river, the tilt of your head,
your over-shoulder grin—

the road-trip south in your little blue car,
windows open to the dusty breeze,
herd of pronghorn in the distance—

your blunt advice: look for another job.
And later: It's your wedding, you choose the colour.

The way, at twenty-five, we shook our heads
over our naiveté at twenty.

But I can't remember the job you had that summer.
The music you played, that's gone too.
And the last thing you said,
I can't find it. Cant find it anywhere.

The usual reminder

Hi everyone,

It's great to see everyone's work coming up on May Day. I always enjoy seeing the themes that each writer follows through the month.

Just a reminder: do remember to label each of your posts. It will make it much easier for you (and others) to find your work later.

Thanks, all!

Astronaut Icarus is Addicted

Eyes
on mine
fire up the engines,
the spoon

Lips
on neck
flight begins

Fingers
on wrist
off to space

Mouth
on breasts
heat panels fail

On and on
time ends
life begins

Never ever enough

shoot me up
again sugar

even if
the clock must
start again

even if
re-entry is
so cold alone

even if
the crash
is death

I'll extract
these cracked bones
from the earth

reassemble
drag us back
to the launch pad

insist on
another mission

no matter how risky
or how much radiation
I've already absorbed

slice

What she said
when she caught me looking
as her sleeve slid up:



---

----

------

-- ---

- ----;

---- ----

------

--

----

---

----.


and her sleeve slid back down
like a blade over skin.

Let's pretend

mommy come see

I combed my hair

now I’m a normal kid

mommy they said

they’d play with me

if I threw garbage

we play house

and I am the window

mommy how about

I was a cat

and you took me home

called me Precious

let’s pretend

I was alone

and you found me

Found in Translation

thesauruses and dictionaries in three languages leapfrog
over the tabletop; eleven
webpages compete for screenspace

this play, boiling worldviews down into palatable gravy
----lingua franco
that tyrannizes the page, erases enemies without a trace

task tracked in minutes and words
but more accurately by a lifetime of failed attempts to
make intent line up with available language

struggling with the ethics:
is this misappropriation of a language? to re-locate
ancestral worldview to an island in the Pacific?

pan-tribalism is not a cardinal
sin, but neither is
the pope

at the end, the playwright, mostly happy, asks
"can you make "bone-and-sinew"
sound more exotic, oceanic; less Plains Cree"

and you substitute prairie chicken for fish
and watch it swim away (fins
flapping) -- try not to choke

on
the
bones

Wu's Café

Dinner for Four, with all our favorites:
won ton soup, egg rolls, chow mein.
Afterwards we unwrap the folded wafers,
snap them apart. We expect
the usual promises: love, luck
success. Surprised, then, to find
advice instead: "Courage
is your greatest need at present."

But why not? A random draw
turns up a good card now and then.
The fortune cookie, though inedible,
might tell you something almost wise.
Something that looks like guidance.
Not quite providence, but a word
that echoes an unacknowledged ache.
An accidental message that you take home
just in case it is for you.

River 3 (Yangtze near Chongqing)

sister's vein is slashed—
not wine, nor plums, but red death
pours out all their lies.

Retriever: Eli Rubenstein Speaks at Yom Ha Shoah

"I wasn't always a Holocaust survivor. Once upon a time, I was a little girl." - Judy Weisenberg Cohen

"I have been honoured with the stories of
survivors over the years. One man
who was just a young boy in those days
told me about his dog.
He was very smart, this dog, knew many tricks.
All the children loved this dog.

When as a boy he was being moved to the Warsaw ghetto
with his family, an SS officer took his dog
saying it was too smart a dog to live with Jews --

-- they moved several times after that,
ghetto to ghetto, and he missed nothing
more than that dog (the lost homes,
seized businesses, forsaken
bicycles, the wearing
of a star
meant nothing next to the loss
of his best friend)

And one night he awoke to
slobber, a greeting possible
only by one living being, his fine
dog. The dog moved on to his parents'
room, where they marvelled

at his ability to track them
through so many moves and
miles: truly the smartest dog
ever, but they could not keep him.
Barely enough food
for the children.

The boy and his brothers
cried that they would eat
less to feed
the dog.

Until

one day the soldier appeared again.

This dog it seems
is too smart for either of us

And he shot it before their eyes.

Now multiply that pain
that agony
of watching someone beloved die

six million times
over

not six million

as a number

but one.
and then another.
and then another.

until you reach
six

million. And you will

begin to understand the pain

of a survivor."

"Always remember: nobody survived the Holocaust unless somebody else helped them." -Eli Rubenstein