Walking Home from School in a Sympathetic Winter Scene
The low clouds muffle the sound of snow
about to fall and land
on this ground already covered
I circle the frozen lake alone
If you were here
(the dead always know more than the living)
we could hear what no one else
has ever heard in this muted silence –
the crystalized molecules rapidly
skating into each other
just above my head
I’m sure I can hear
the snow about to fall:
it’s the sound of a child’s mobile
made of a hundred small icicles
or a seamstress’s wind chime
strung with twenty tiny needles
I can hear all this in my head
as I walk home alone
in this stone deaf February afternoon
Pope
Any dream in which you see the Pope,
without speaking to him,
warns you of servitude.
You will bow to the will of some master,
even to that of women.
To speak to the Pope denotes
that certain high honours
are in store for you.
To see the Pope looking sad or displeased
warns you against vice or sorrow
of some kind.
Port Mann Bridge
It’s obvious this structure is female
with its roundbacked steel-tiered arch
completing its circle unseen below
the waterline –
its cross beams of one x upon the next
like the laced back of a corset forming
a curve over its orthotropic deck –
the beauty of its three spans cantilevered
from north bank to south –
giving so much more than it receives
so you can cross over what is hidden
beneath the cross hatched steel girders
grounded in the depths of
the Fraser
My Heart
My heart is a blood orange.
Peel it and place it inside your mouth
whole. It will bleed like a sunset
as it dissolves.
Swallow and, if you can,
feel no remorse.
Grasshoppers
In the dry summer heat we run
through the tall yellow grass, scratchy
against our tanned legs. We catch caterpillars
in jars prepared with grassy habitats, and cup
grasshoppers in our hands as long as we dare.
“Watch out for dragonflies,” Bobby warns, as we
plot to catch every insect we see. “They can bite
the heads off bumblebees.”
Dragonflies skim over the surface of the pool.
The three of us duck under the water, yell
Dragonfly! as a warning when we see one coming.
Butterflies skirt and flutter along the edge of the house,
hover above the overgrown grass. The last grasshopper
is a small dry corn husk in my hands. It leaves a splotch
of brown in my palm. I throw it down and run. My Dad says
I probably scared it.
From now own, I am scared of grasshoppers.
February Return
When we opened the front door after a week away,
valentines fluttered to the ground around our feet like
red rounded leaves or dozens of butterfly families
landing.
My parents let me read the Valentines
over and over again as I tried to drift
to sleep in their bed. Surrounded by small gifts
from my friends, I still couldn’t forget the
small piles of my grandfather’s ironed
and folded handkerchiefs on the dresser,
his cane hanging on the door handle,
the gift box of English Leather,
the beige canoe bank filled with pennies,
the stack of our cards and letters.
Christmas Gift
That December my mother buys brown wrap paper
from the post office. She neatly wraps the three bottle gift set
of English Leather for my grandfather and asks us to help
tie the parcel. My brother and I take turns placing our index
fingers over the knot while our mother ties the strings tight.
Kevin and I sign the Christmas card in pencil crayon,
watch Mom tuck our 3×5 school photos into the envelope.
Our mother unravels and cuts extra string to tie careful
double and triple knots. In February we bring home with us
the opened card with our pictures, and
the unopened box.
Dead Man Float
My cousin, my brother and I are passing
the basketball back and forth in the carport.
“Stand here,” Bobby says to us, putting the ball down.
“I bet I can beat you in a race. I can run all the way
around the house in 2 seconds flat.
Close your eyes. OK, see I’m back!”
He hasn’t moved a muscle.
I can’t believe he thinks we are that stupid.
That afternoon we dive for pennies wearing
masks and goggles. He shows me all the water
poses he knows. When our parents go out
and my grandmother is inside making tea,
I lay face down in the pool, spread out my arms
and legs like a starfish and stay very still.
I keep holding my breath and finally Bobby notices
hear him call my name, feel him poke my limp arm,
the commotion as he climbs out of the pool
and runs into the house in 2 seconds flat.
When he runs back outside with Grandma
I am practicing my freestyle.
The Black Rotary Phone
It happens every night we are there. Around nine o’clock
the black rotary phone that sits on the kitchen counter rings.
My aunt answers but no one speaks. Sometimes she thinks she hears
breathing. After she hangs up, the phone rings again and again, and
by ten a voice on the line is telling her he is watching us, and knows who’s there.
The ringing stops for awhile and starts again just as we go to bed . My aunt
lets the phone ring and ring off the hook past midnight. I wonder how anyone
can sleep as I lay downstairs with my heart in my throat. My cousin agrees
to walk me up the stairs for a glass of water. I stare at the phone and wonder,
Will the doorbell start ringing? Can the mystery caller see me right now
through the thin kitchen curtains? The water is hard and hurts my stomach.
I don’t linger when my cousin goes back downstairs to bed. I step quickly down
the hall to where my parents are also not sleeping. I end up in my aunt’s pink bedroom
in the small bed against the wall. A large crucifix hangs above me, and I watch it
for hours, wondering if Jesus will open his eyes and look at me. I shut my eyes
and pray for all the souls in purgatory as I wait with my heart beating fast and hard
in my ears until morning.
In the Evenings
In the evenings, the grown ups play cards. We kids sit and munch potato chips,
try to understand the game until we are dizzy from the cloud of cigarette smoke
hanging over our heads. Talk stitches back and forth: people we know, old relatives
in Quebec and St. Boniface, legends told and re-told as they take turns dealing the cards
around the table. We resist sleep as long as they can, but when our eyes burn
and we can no longer breathe, we go downstairs into the lure of cool air.
My cousin takes his yellow plastic car track out of the toy cupboard and we watch
the cars and trucks circle around. Sometimes we stand in the driveway and spin ourselves
until we’re dizzy, then look up at the stars.
At the end of a game, my Dad steps outside and says, “I bet the water in the pool
is warmer than the air.” My aunt always says yes and we rush to change into our bathing suits.
My Dad holds the ladder as we climb in. He is there on a patio lawnchair, watching us
run as fast as we can in a large circle along the sides over and over and again
feet tucked under in canonball position.
A spark in the universe 