Molasses, again

girlchild

honeychild.

like molasses you are over me

clinging, sticky in your demands

tiny pursed mouth opened to a

black hole of you, of

squirming pouting need.

The

needs of being 2 on this planet.

Soon, sooner than I think

sooner than warned

you will shun my aching arms, you who

finds me, prone

1 am, blurry eyed dragging teddy wordlessly

your airsoft skin gentle on mine, perfect

scented head on my pillow. The candy of an age.

My girlchild to

womanchild to woman, no child.

yet I will always have this child.

I cast my eyes into your future. I cast

lines north to south for

warm mornings, cereal that stays in bowls

wet kisses, tears. They find themselves

tethered, unseen.

I shall hand you reeds to breathe above this. I shall

grasp your hand tighter down stairs. I shall

paint stories with the greenery that frames your

tiny impish glow.

Honeychild, let the bees come. Your sweetness

flows freely as it should.

(originally written in 2007-wanted to post tonight, but lazy, thought I’d rework this a bit.)

Dew Dandy

sitting, comfortably

pressed against concrete singing

(Sweet About Me) under my breath

keeping time on my jeans

hunched ladies from my neighbourhood happen by

stop, staring at my obliviousness and ask

Are you ok?

Just dandy, never better

left the kids at home and whistle

it’s so quiet without them I felt like singing.

knowing glances wander down the way.

 

air like this, it’s like the earth is

making love to you without touching

the embers of a day, bluebrown in the sky twilight

asking for nothing aside from the sweat

beneath your eyes. air like this sweet, riding the ends

of summer rings and whispers yesterday

 

thing about having kids, thing about being

just dandy in the dew lit night is

you count back and think

has it really been 5 years since I was untethered

wandering under skies like these at will

void of hurry or worry, winkin or nod. Has it

really been so long since cigarette smoke

twined it’s way around my body and I

fell effortlessly in love with the world.

 

Has it really been so long since I watched the same sun

rise and fall?

 

air like this you see

seduces, trollop. Linens and silks and

morning glories, waved underneath our noses

combed through our hair painted on red lips. air

like this is fire, burns colorless yet gasping.

air like this, is enough to remind us

on a cloudy muggy night that

all things, all matter of anything

are perfectly understandable.

How many days does sorry count? Draft

inside the whitewash of my mouth

tangled there, thorns and bramble

there hung a moment, and instant a

hateful thought borne of anger

pain and a tinkling sadness I thought

left behind in that

sinking ship I like to call a past.

 

It cannot be borne, nor

retrieved and I, in my

blinding Alexander like pique

don’t hear the air crack and seize, don’t hear the

whiplash of a heart break.

 

Caught up am I. Seething am I.

Oblivious, wrapped in caustic am I.

 

From my rage my eyes, the broad bridge

of a nose, my thin lips arise, my ears

uncover, I pierce the skin of my madness

only to peer through the corners and feel that

all have left me.

 

Something changed.

Like the wind between summer and winter, that

warm biting edge on a breeze that smells like sleep something

shifted, softened, sighed and released.

 

I have smothered this love, coated it in wax and

walked the other way, my work sinking

deeper, festering. I have

brought down the walls and

collapsed the cellars.

 

My hands holding the dirt

of what once was between us.

1984, the years you stole.

stopped in the store, glaring white light

she cries “Mommy! Cherries!” and a moment a skip

I find myself swallowing bile and vomit and 20 plus years of

squeamish denial.

 

One hand in, one round fruit out. A perfect stem

stretches towards me. “This one is perfect!” she blurts.

I turn my head so the clenching will go unnoticed.

 

Inside, in the distance, an unfurling, unravelling.

 

I place the fruit singly in the bag, each contact

weighted down, a jolt, a bridge.

That day, any of those days that summer, somewhere

around 1984 and I had that red bathing suit with the

racer back and yellow straps, and sun shone a

chemical burn between those rotten apple trees.

 

Those days, pocketed in my hand the smell of him, the

taste of him his wetness and his burden on my face his fruit

passed between us.

 

Unravel.

 

They ask for them, the one fruit denied the thing

I couldn’t bear to look at, to listen about “Wow-look at these cherries” the

hurried wives and businesswomen would say “so lovely” under the 2.99/lb signs

while I

did my level best not to collapse and teeter around them,

my mouth turned to stem.

 

Thumbs bore inside as the kitchen light

shines off their edges, as the light of my daughters lies stark 

across them and I’m covered in it, the stain of them

bloody across my hands and fingertips those same

fingertips which opened that door and opened that drawer

filled to flowing with those bloody lush fruits.

Filled to flowing with that one particular torment. Filled to flowing with

his tongue down my mouth and cherries floating past, excuses.

 

Unraveled…

my door holds the remnants

holds the last story, moldering inside clear.

 

They will not be eaten.

10 years now, bonded and branded.

 

cradled.

my world in brown, in dewy heady

earth we’ve buried our bodies in, the flesh of time.

 

In visions your hands are there, strong dusky mittens of

memory, the cold splash of a peach on a Sunday morning, remnants

of strawberries and cream, slithering up your palms as my belly,

full with child, our child, you brushed.

 

Arms would be cradles.

Eyes would be cradles.

Soft words at 4am buffers

bumpers, shields.

 

Love would be meaningless if given only as gestures.

 

Entwined in my heart you are-tangled like

vines in the backyard, ripe with

raspberries, or

exploding with lupins, bruised in pale blues and purples.

Your fingers dance through mine. Laughter like the rising sparrows

from your lungs to mine

echoes through these years.

 

The tin man is ours, he with no heart.

Empty we were, bereft and yet, quietly unaware.

We fill him now, we fill rooms, we fill forests and cities.

We cradle his heart in ours.

 

Happy Anniversary baby. I love you so very much.

The person we are.

in the backround

a tip trat tap in the empty bathroom

echoing

against the wood we haven’t managed to take down yet.

your hands shiver against the door

and you return, crumbling your way up

the stairs, around the corner

falling into our bed.

Your breath bangs heavy you

aren’t the young boy I knew

those 10 or so years ago

in your dingy longjohns and

tshirts, your gauntness

your greatness in my sheltered eyes.

The weight shifts, a hand reaches to mine

the pressure, the pressure of years

of days and weeks and minutes

the time we’ve put together

the person we are.

Fall Morning, thinking of my love

I’d like to write about the sunglaring through the sky, burning it’s way through the trees and

the corners of the buildings and the bodies, oh lo the bodies.

I’d like to dance say

once or twice around the world and into the arms

of the one person I’ve loved forever it seems

yesterday today and quite possibly even

tomorrow. I’d do a jig

special for them, made quiet.

I’d like to write for everyone the certain glance I give the

broken windows I see, the power lines that

garble the sky, the sound of all the creatures

hoarding in my backyard

all the moments to behold before

we tear it down

we tear

we tear

and I’ll sacrifice myself for it

for you on

altars made plain by today.

I’d like to write and explain this

outwards, turned inside out and made

possible, potential. I’d like to

thank you for something

something external and voiceless

nameless? no, it’s named

I just can’t shake it off my hands.

Breathe in now. Breathe in the day

the lives you eat the lives you live the

small tiny moments where the sky becomes the ground

falling around your head and you feel

like there’s no bottom to catch

the fish that has taken your heart.

Breathe in the daily measures

the bread the water the

love the joy the love!

Breathe. I’d like to write you something.

Soma, The shores of Lake Superior. Draft

On the radio

Soma hovers and alights on my ears, into my eyes

cast back I land

black grass and lamp lit night

years ago, swollen on my back.

The worlds of someone else fluttering above

We talk we listen and for a moment

we’re not 16 we’re forever

you and I, this is, we’re invincible our

feet only touch the ground

because we want them to.

We slowed time to nothing, to

glances and the passing of a torch

a minute we could stop, a second that

fingers could cling to. Faces that could watch.

That night, years back, past, our moon

hung back and glowed it’s hurried message

don’t go so fast don’t grow don’t be

quite so eager for that tomorrow

you can’t yet see.

Pine filled the air. Our hands

briefly touched as we passed.

Molasses

girlchild

honeychild

like molasses you are over me

clinging, sticky in your demands

tiny pursed mouth opened to a

black hole of you, of

pure frustration and need. The

needs of being 2 on this planet.

Soon, sooner than I think

sooner than warned

you will shun the arms I so unwillingly give

1 am, blurry eyed dragging teddy wordlessly

your airsoft skin gentle on mine tiny

scented head on my pillow.  My girlchild to

womanchild to woman, no child.

yet I will always have this child.

I cast my eyes into your future. I cast out

my lines flying from north to south in search of

warm mornings, cereal that stays in bowls

wet kisses, tears. They recede into

broken hearts and angry women.

I shall hand you reeds to breathe above this. I shall

grasp your hand tighter down stairs. I shall

paint stories with the greenery that frames your

tiny impish glow.

Honeychild, let the bees come. Your sweetness

flows freely as it should.

Joggins, July (draft 2)

under hanging grey haired skies

the soon to be sand clumped between our toes

brown water

from across the world swirled around your fingers, foamy

remnants of lost mermaids.

 

upon reds and blacks and browns and a slight

twinkling of broken green we could sit for hours

dragging ourselves through drifted bits of tree and strands of sea grass

we’d grow new legs to walk on water, the browned cliffs which

tell stories of age would record us, tally your cheeks, my

overabundant self , the self contained seriousness of

“look mummy look” finger pointed ever upward.

 

in the sky flies a dappled gull, fittingly, squalling. we watch as the tide slowly

lowers itself back onto our rocky silent beach.

 

I may forget this tomorrow. We cling to dusted sea glass and basalt today

just to make sure.

That one birch tree

There’s this tree

in your backyard, remember?

Scored with beer caps and childhood fingers.

You yelled at me about that once, the sacredness of

your baby tree.

When I was small, it was boxed in, protected,

wood painted in rust.

You held it’s hand, told it stories of who would come

to lie in it’s branches. Kept it clean.

Felt it’s verdant leaves with your eyes.

I sat upon that box as a child, my fingers

digging through the earth for sticky earthworms, warm and

flailing in my hands. I would cut it’s little world

in half, to see if it was true, that half a worm would become yet another.

I came back one day to find

your box had disappeared, your tree,

taller than the house now taller

than I, it’s greenery stretching

between the power lines, escaping.

“I remember” you said. “When that tree,

when it was no taller than you. It’s trunk

delicate and forgettable. Your arms could

reach right around it.”

You said it had broken free one morning. You

walked down the crumbled concrete steps, found the red wood had

fallen to the side, exposing the tree at it’s throat.

I miss you

you’d love them now

their messy hair standing straight, knotted in

a million ways, as mine did, brushing

their eyes.

shirts covered in peanut butter,

milk, the evidence of backyards.

you’d love them now. You’d love

how they move, how they’ve gone from

teetering to strong, stubby legs

sure of their path. Hands grasping

outwards seeking tomorrow and

crackers.

They are just like me. Their mouths

talk like me, their eyes, soft like me but

brown instead of never make up my mind

hazel. They are

stronger, as you were.

They remind me of you Mom, your simple

touches, your regal bearing your

dripping loveliness. They look

good in the blues you loved.

you’d love them.

(This is NOT formatted properly…STUPID wordpress…)

Sisters, v.1.0

Sun shattered and grey holds behind the door. You giggle at the bottom, twins almost, your morning starting out entwined. Like lovers you are together, one movement, one step together.

I toss in my bed, tired but hungry for your tiny arms, your grasping fingers. Your smells.

How I cannot ever forget your morning smells, musty from bed, wet outside of water. Your fingers tangle with mine, as the sunlight rises to your face-“light!” you exclaim “Light!” it’s magic working on you

Hi Mummy you mutter, your brief smiling face squished beside me, your sister stands guard, amazon in the doorway

no man shall enter to bewitch you.

Arms Akimbo

It’s a line remembered from

that children’s dictionary,

the one with the

red letters on the cover, the one you bought me my seventh year

my mother, meant to educate, to provide the means for me

to express in this world 

Years later the only word I remember, akimbo

images of girls walking along, walking arm in arm smiling,

dressed in matching socks and ribbons

The only word I’ve never used out loud. 

This morning I thought it, confronted with not one but two groups of matching women, walking beside

each other walking to

take up all the room in the aisle of this saddened mall 

I thought of you mother, your hands holding my arms as we walked

akimbo down the aisles somewhere once. 

In my ears it resounds Akimbo Akimbo and I can’t help but 

see myself on my bed, the scary silly circus paper on my walls where I 

colored all the eyes black the window where 

lights shone through at night and I couldn’t sleep. 

I couldn’t sleep. 

In my dreams, we never walk together.

I could love you for hours (draft)

Hours, minutes, days, years

we’ve counted, and not counted our time together not

tied it up, nailed it down, but 9 years you’ll remind me

9 years since we were so drunk the absinthe didn’t taste bad 9 years

9 years since we were so young and running, tearing away from a tomorrow which

glistening, scared us wide eyed in the woods.

I loved you like a girl then.

I loved you with a terror, a fervour-I would have chanted your name until

incense fell from my lips, my skin quaking for you, street lights covering our bodies in the windows of that whitest of white homes, barren walls.

Hours, minutes, days, weeks change us, reshape us

we pick at the clay we hand our daughters and mold ourselves

images not so delicate, not so innocent.

I know you now. Your socks lying always on your side of the floor, folded once catch my eye.

Your piles, your need for order.

Your face growing ever so slightly older, the wisdom time etches into your hands. My body knows all of these things, and wears them like old shirts worn soft over the years.

I can close my eyes and trace your face in front of me, the broken black stubble, kind guarded eyes, brown as the rich earth we’ll plant tomatoes in this year.  I can feel your breath all the way from here.

I love you as a woman now, as a mother, as a friend. I long to sit together, our children dancing, singing, floating on air, creatures of us and from us. Creatures borne of us.

Hours, minutes, days, weeks, years will take us farther from this place.

I just want to sit and stare at it all.

Anna, you could have been mine too

your babies are crying your name

they cry in my sleep they tell me

secrets, stories of your beauty stories of your

busy moments next to death next to their lives

next to the sun

time come in the future they will

barely remember your touch your voice

forget what color your eyes were and

what show you liked to watch before bed

how you liked your eggs.

they tell me they want you at their weddings.

somehow Anna, somehow

your eyes will watch theirs your memories will

take hold of their hearts and you will love them

you will love them

they tell me your secrets

they tell me no lies

they tell me the rotting that ate you apart from them

scares them still

watching you leave watching food turn

to water in your mouth watching

hair fall from fingers on the couch

watching your lover fall to pieces yet so strong

they tell me they love you and silent

remember

I can tell you stories.

And such stories you’d never see

burned as they are

into the air that hovers so gently around you

For my husband, never given, Father’s Day

I can see your face behind my eyes.

Reflected they hold the years, the
moments we almost lost each other.

Yet they hold a simpler promise than
any other given. A quiet, misty
strength shines constant.

have I loved as strong as this? Have I
deserved for long these moments, savoured
laughter that stretches for miles and miles and
a love that holds firm all of us, steady on your feet?

I can see our future behind my eyes.

Bound heavy together, tied to each other but not
tied down. Floating on this piece of happy we
never thought we could have. Our daughters
cry lovely for your arms.

They dance forever only for you.

Gentle turning, I’ve awoken
to a place that has prodded
awake in me this moment
this sovereign gesture

I can look no further alone.

There are memories, and there are
instances, places we
can no longer get at
roads washed out
paths long grown over

stand strong we must. Stand
forever and guardian before
bramble and brimstone.

I will not fail you. I will 
hold fast in a dying light my
heart will not be seared my
breath will not be taken

I will not fold my self around me,
I’ve only this chrysalis to defend me
a cushion made of myself.

Gentle turning I’ve
awoken to a spring I thought
I lost all claim to long ago.

Mother

I walked the roads for you today
because of you
some might say
in spite of you

sirens roared past and I
immediately felt you,
soft cold hands
wrapped tight around
food that is not food
my fingers
your life

and water came unbidden as I
saw you once again tube tied
to a bed in some room that
never was your room so
white so dripping in
frozen time I cannot begun to tell

those roads surrendered my
grief unto themselves
absorbing, breathing in
as the air escaped

let go

the aching sky mentions

let it all go

I see your dead eyes again. The sky has claimed them.