THE DOG

The six of us look as usual but we are all dogs
Around that Christmas table of 1999. My sister
Carves with the concentration of a sculptor
Trying to free the angel from stone. This is usual.

My brother carries the turkey to table
Losing a wing. This is usual. My daughters
Discuss whether Handel’s Messiah or Christmas
Music from around the world should be played.

This is usual. I pour the water, spilling water,
My husband pours the wine with expertise. This is
Usual. What is not usual: a year ago, Christmas ’98,
We were fifteen, now we are six. Experiencing

The long table as more than half empty. We look
As usual; shellshock does not show on the face.
We strip flesh from bone. We pass the dressing.
We eat. We drink. The modern part of us understands

That the rest of the family will not arrive. It under-
Stands that the house is silent because no children
Play downstairs. That Santa will not come, that Baby
Jesus has grown up fast, that since last Christmas

He’s been crucified, has become God, Who has reverted
To Yahweh, Who is out to teach us a hard lesson: death,
Divorce, estrangement. But the dog. The dog part of us
Has its ears up. It listens for a familiar motor, listens

For the back door to open, listens for the familiar
Footsteps, listens for the voices downstairs. All through
Dinner the dog is poised to run and jump and lick,
The dog is about to go crazy with joy.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

YOUR VILLAGE

slipknot, aerosol

or invertebrate, a thing
spineless

drawn out in sections and rewired
to complete the circuit

hot light
in each alcove, insomniac
the green yellow eyes

of a cat, blinking
in the dark

nothing put to sleep.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

THE EX-WORLD

Death had seemed so abrupt to X,
like a TV show she loved being cancelled,
or a pet lipstick color discontinued.

Of course X knew these were minor examples!
Their minority let X think about death.
By now she’d lived through so many

new shows just a hue different from old ones
and new lipsticks causing a shade of mourning
for colors that would never be made again,

at least in her lifetime, she thought,
the end isn’t sudden at all—
why, it begins back with the first x-ing out.

Death wasn’t an ending, it was a transfer!
Cancellation by discontinuation,
she was crossing into the next world.

Disappearing through the border was
a bit like a passport check.
“What does the X stand for?”

the officer usually said at her customs-of-the-mind,
and she made up all sorts of names:
Example, Exonerate, Exfoliate.

Then the officer would point to the Exit
and watch her go. She seemed to dematerialize,
but instead made an entrance on the other side

in an alternate shade of her self.
X cared just a bit less about this world
each time some little thing she loved got crossed out.

Some tiny cells of her own disappeared
with the end of “Zoom Maroon” and “Toast of New York.”
Like Get Smart and The Avengers

her re-makes were never quite the same.
Yet fading piqued her curiosity:
Ex means examine, too,

each layer peeling off
its own thinny-thin translucency
like values of moonlight.

Which do you prefer, the sun or the moon?
Which one, LIFE or DEATH?
The thing clearly seen—or the thing in mystery?

Well, it’s time for mystery, X thought,
even though you’ve always moved past the spot
by the time you’ve marked it.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

TWISTER

The Evangelical Christian
was so busy
tying up his shoelace
that he failed
to notice the twister
fast approaching.
When he finally stood up
and saw dark clouds
surrounded by a funnel-shaped force,
he said to himself, “My Lord,
is that Armageddon?”

“No,” said the postman
who had just put a large package
in the Evangelical Christian’s
mailbox, “it’s a tornado.”
The package
had been weighing
the postman down since
this morning,
and he was glad to be
relieved of it.

“Should we take cover?”
asked the Evangelical Christian.

“I suppose,” said the postman,
“but I still have
all this mail to deliver.”

“Well, you could rest here,”
the Evangelical Christian suggested,
“and wait for the storm to pass.”

The postman
looked up at the charcoal sky,
at the leaves and twigs blowing
in the unrelenting wind.
The birds and animals were taking cover,
and the postman decided
he had better take cover too.

“I could make some tea,”
the Evangelical Christian offered,
“and we could sit on the porch
and watch the storm.
If the storm should get too rough,
we can take cover in the basement
where there’s a fruit cellar.”

“Sounds like a plan,”
said the postman as he
removed the mailbag
from his aching shoulder
and set it beside
a pot of red geraniums.

The neighbourhood
looked like a ghost town—
not person, or car, or animal in sight.
The postman supposed
everyone was either at work or school.
And the ones who were inside
probably always stayed in
even in good weather.

The postman had an aunt
who was agoraphobic.
She lived alone and had no children.
She died the way most hope to—
painlessly, peacefully in her sleep.

Because she never left the house
and had no family,
no one knew
she was no longer alive.
It was the smell
of her rotting corpse that
alerted her neighbours
in the adjacent apartment
to her condition.

The postman felt guilty
for not visiting his aunt more often
or taking more of an interest
in her affairs.
But truth be told,
she had not taken any
particular interest in him.
You get what you give—
or is it—
you give what you get?
In either case,
the postman thought,
communication
is a two-way street.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

GRASS IN MY HAIR

I was arguing
with the scarecrow.
His voice
was like a wall
of sand coming
closer and closer.
He had corn
on his breath
but no mouth
to speak of.
His mind
was a straw stalk
in the wind,
all the colours
of a golden
rainbow, there,
but not there,
even his pinstripes
soil-scented.
And I was saying
to the scarecrow,
“We end,
we begin.”
I was telling him
the true names
of all the dead.
I was asking
a stupid question:
“Where’s the crow
inside my head?”
Which he thought
quite funny,
a perpetual grin
on his dried lips,
his eyes seeing
into the far distance,
a tear forming
in the new silence
that summer, and he
impeccably dressed.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011

CHARITY

The light morning slivers and glitters through crab
apples frozen and sweet as clumps of pin
cherries to a flock of chickadees—

But I don’t chase the sun outside except to meet
the big white truck that pulls up to our door
to deliver our new dryer, two lank smiling guys
with strong crafty shoulders and crinkled eyes.

“That fridge? Does it work?” one asks, pushing
the trolley along the path we forced through junk
piled high in the garage. “There’s a family we know
could use such a thing…”

It’s a good one, almost new:
I should ask my husband first.

“Sure, give us a call… If you want, we could take
that old washing machine too, there’s always someone
who needs one. Just think, all that space…?”

What the heck! Take them both.
Happy new year!

When they’re gone, I mooch
through rooms upstairs, wrap presents, answer cards.
Only then notice the sun’s gone in, blocked by a matte
grey shield of storm.

The smiles on their faces, their speed as they lifted
the fridge and the washer into the truck.
What kind of jerk am I, to pick up the phone?

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they were telling the truth.
We do that sometimes. They’re working for us.”

The space in the garage seems to call for more.
I could throw out all the rest of this stuff,
throw it out, or give it away,
leave room for nothing but sun,
nothing

but a truckful of sun
rolling in on a trolley
heaped with morning
through the
                              open        door.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
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