1999: November 2007 Archives

In the crisp blue light of the TV
she had turned to me and asked if
I would be able to remember
any unique marks on her skin
if I ever needed to identify her body.
The question swam close,
but I could not reel in an answer,
could not produce the words
of the parts I had photographed,
held, tasted.

In the indigo glow she lifted her
sweater, pointed to an almost nonexistent
plum-coloured patch on the side of her ribcage,
close to her breast: the shape of a foggy
Newfoundland in the ocean of skin.
Of course, I always knew that it was there,
never thought about it. Until now

when the sheet is pulled back
and under the marbleblue arm
lies a cold island and a freckle:
the distinct and unforgivable
mark of St. Johns.

January 18

The windows reach up two floors, stare
with filmy vision into York Street streaked
with cars and buses and blurred buildings.
The glass is fingerprinted and smudged
with the exhaust of countless admissions of guilt;
their stale breath still hovers in the filtered light.
still sticks to the expensive leather sofa;
I sink further down into its gummy clutches
and wonder what the hell I am doing here
waiting to exhale my life story to someone
who can't even keep his windows clean.
How dirty his will his hands be?

* * *

In contrast cleanliness, the office is dimly lit,
painted in the right shades of magenta
and tangerine to inspire condemnation, admission -
I could confess to anything here
and convince myself of its truth.
The multi-faceted multi-coloured clock
counts the minutes of my narrative,
the seconds of his questions, the hour
it will take before I can leave this
pastel purgatory of dusted knick-knacks,
straightened shelves and books,
carefully-aligned pictures, and
the perpendicular placement of pens
to writing pad. Nothing is out of place but me

The woman in the sixth seat on the left
side of the bus reads a magazine in a language
I've never seen, turns the pages carefully,
focuses on each image, each section of text.
Stops on the centrefold: a series of hands
palms upward, foreign text flowing
around images, lines unfurling to the edges.
Magazine balanced on her lap, she holds both
of her hands upward, palms open as if in prayer
or in preparation for surgery.
And she begins to examine the lines
fingertip to knucklegroove, palmridge to wrist,
searches for the forks that point to prosperity,
tiny pathways to salvation. She studies them all,
head bent forward in anticipation, fingers
curled inward to hold the potential fortune close,
eyes riveted. And me, across the aisle: a voyeur
palms pressed together, sealed with sweat,
willing her to find the lines she seeks.

My fingers grip your face like rock; I stick
digits into your open mouth
into nostrils ears eye sockets
to steady myself as I climb upward
to the top. Your hair, eyebrows
twine around my fingers: snarls of brush
and vines that twist around my hands, snag
my ascension, hold me next to stoney surface.

You would hold me here forever if you could,
allow birds to peck out my eyes and organs,
permit the sun to bake me into earth.

I repel down to your bottom lip, a slippery
protrusion of rock,
call into deep caverns;
the resounding echo signals emptiness,
assures me that the caves
are hollow vacuous cold
best left unexplored.

Such a colourful memory you had
(before the shock):
bright, when we had expected it to be grey.

Wish that one of us could collect the animated
chunks spattered on the ceiling, walls,
across the floor. Glowing at our feet.
Wish that one of us could make a small incision
and carefully stuff vivid memory back in:
take the auroral thoughts and recollections
shove them back
into the creases where they once lodged,
reattach them to bright, living cells.

We should have been warned that this would happen.
They should have advised us to wear dark glasses.

Large gatherings of people are oppressive:
the claustrophobic swells of voices,
the stickiness of too-close skin, the odours
of lunch lingering on collective breath.

Reunions. Strangers meeting and leaving
still strangers. Conversation attempted
where an exit beacon beckons nearby:
questions that poke into skin eyeballs mouths,
foreign hands that grab stomachs
searching for signs of procreation,
lips that blather about blissful births and parenthood joys,
voices muted by the screeches of bored and hungry children.

There is no comfort in the warm potato salad
and stale rolls. Consolation can only
be unearthed in the bowls and bowls of coleslaw.
There is solace in mountains of shredded cabbage;
it has been fed through the grater,
has felt the grating of nerves.

Midway through dinner, it is easier to steal outside
into cool silent air to inhale narcotic aloneness
and pick cabbage, shred by shred from clenched teeth.

A fish swims between us
side by side as ocean floor
swishes around aqueous legs
and undulating hair; coral and seagrass
swaying in the lilt of water.

A fish swims under arm-arcs
nibbles at sandskin
searches caverns for food; a fish swims
into my watery caves: dormant holes in the sand.

A fish swims above our planted bodies
breathes globes of air that trail and spiral
upward onward airward
to a surface we can no longer remember.

To sit by the window in my apartment
above the shops. Screenless. Curtained with gauzy
white sheets smudged with smoke and car exhaust. My feet
rest on the window ledge, one toe eased into damp
windowbox-soil. Searches out old geranium petals, still-soft
against skin. The room is hot; heavy breath blows curtains,
lifts my skirt to cool the back of clammy knees. Sweat-trickles
tickle the flesh between breasts and shoulder-blades
Suddenly I wish that I hadn't finished yesterday's wine.

Amateur guitar-strumming soothes me.
The street musician plays wildly beside the outdoor
patio where the thirsty exchange of ideas is whetted
by the consumption of ale. Their words ring familiar,
form the lyrics to songs I had forgotten, cause me
to remember fervid coffeeshopbanter of years past.
Nostalgia-warm, I fan my face with a nearby paperback.

Sandaled and blue-skirted girls pass below, necklines
and hair billow with warm wind. They cross
the car-dotted street, past the stone steps
where the black-haired girl sits in late afternoons
scribbling into yellow notebooks. I call across to her
my voice smothered by car-hum and wind. Invite her
to my warm-winded place. To discuss
where we had hoped to be at this time in our lives
on a day like this. To discuss geraniums.