SPRING
morning the sidewalks still slick
ice thin as cellophane
by noon pitted concrete waxes with tulips
each year opening more of its pebbled surface
shocked by the way the world is bare
wearing mask on mask on mask
don’t mind the rain, what an intimacy
cracking the umbrella’s delicate arms
finally something happens
the king descends the stairs
“today that would be impossible”
a market without a head
house prices on Degrassi St
award after award after award
without knowing the language
fluent and non-fluent aphasia
pinched nerve from sleepless nights
cracked shutters and peeling paint
Canada kills ambition:
how many ways can you intimidate
awake at dawn with stress
Dream of anger. Conflict—every kind—sometimes settles something else. Banging your head against a wall opens a trick cabinet you didn’t know was there.
In the dream. Speaking to my father, stating something calmly and clearly. No response. An obvious injustice—I’ve asked for something that is denied that I later discover a sibling gets without asking.
Not a thing but understanding, allowance.
I present my case again. I am dismissed. To get anyone’s attention I have to escalate, and escalate, until the youngest part of me is speaking.
I don’t like this urgent voice. A toddler’s anger magnified at scale. I grab bread, an entire loaf, tear it, throw it to the floor. I am noticed but now a disappointment—as if it came from me alone.
But I am noticed.
Provocation as communication. It has served me but it has taught me the wrong lessons.
Now I am the one who hears cases. I do not have to do it distantly—I can have more understanding for the self who wants to erupt.
What I would have done. We have different ideas about that. I can imagine it so easily, carrying forward the momentum from the summer. Before it moved into its final months. I felt I was seeing with greater clarity than I ever had before. I believe that, though I know you don’t.
What you thought I would do. Closer to how I have responded. All of the ways I betrayed myself, and you, stuck on the same responses, the same questions.
Wish this accounting was reversed.
Writing a letter that I’ll never send—except in a dream. Writing it for the dream.
Remembering rolling out the cracker dough. We needed so much meal. Wish I could send you a text only to say that I made them again.
There are some things I can’t do. The car feels light on the highway. It leans to the left, where I sit in the driver’s seat. There is a spot empty next to me. I can feel the wheels lift off the road.
Why do I think of you when I’m driving? You couldn’t be further from me. All of the new carpool lanes—taking them with you to the blue on blue of our hotel. The blue on blue with you.
Everything feels like a dream. In one I tease you for studying too much. In another I watch you pick up the phone and wince into the receiver—he’s calling again. Why doesn’t he understand?
But I’m the one who doesn’t.
SLANTED DUPLEX
With the hope that there is a receiver
Sending writing into nothing
Reception that never materializes
I check this website for your ghost
Impossible to capture your essence
It doesn’t leave a digital trail
You followed the crumbs I left
Until you deleted the shared folder
Really I unchecked the Dropbox
That you made me makes me angry
But that rush is only longing—
Sometimes I still think I’m waiting
Writing poetry is killing time
With the hope that there is a receiver
WINTER WAS HARD
snow up my shin, slow
through the mile of the forest
come to where I had cut
branches heavy with leaves
they always used to bother us
on the ends of our walks
dipping and kissing our heads
as we crossed the bridge
something alert near the edge
in a crop of brown weeds
machete stuck handle-first
buried in the earth
flew out of my hands
cutting too recklessly
thought I lost it last August
trimming the tree ends
couldn’t hold on—
I was thinking of you
searched through the muck
kneeling in the creekbed
swishing my stick
disturbing the glass
nothing—nothing—
tangle of rotting leaves
Wrestling with the sage. Retreat to a stronger position. Act with humility. Maintain your composure. Do not move out of desire.
Receptive force to enthusiasm (contains a warning). Great treasures to splitting apart (when I see the open lines stack up I always know it is coming). Retreat to bonding (but what is retreat? from which position am I strongest?).
Answers are also sought in poetry. Lyric poetry a repeated failure. An incapacity to reach the beloved, even if they like the poems. Always reaching toward and always falling short. The failure of language to measure up even as it exceeds its strict bounds (in for instance the sonnet).
In these lines too something is undone. I cast them like the I Ching: hexagram four to forty-four. Inexperience to compulsion. Making up distance that can’t be made up.
MARCH THIRD
just another day—
how time passes
an hour, a year
wishes made, unmade
candles burning
blown out and relit
IN THE SHAVING MIRROR
waterstained topography
rocking with key presses
dusty drops of distant isles
rays trace the speckled
ceiling. some blood vessel
burst in the peninsula
between brows—
discovered previously
on another excursion
roving spotlight:
screw needs tightening
haloing metal hallooing
don’t always want
to look on eyes fixed
despite shifts, bumps,
to be stuck there
past its surface, shrunk
within its silver frame
dream of rain, dream of
violence, dream of couches
burnt, and disappointment
turning its face down
but hanging still within
