Three Poems
Late Afternoon Walk
- I had a life before I knew you.
- What could that have been?
- A life of words and waiting.
- I watch the dark horses
- in the neighbour’s field.
- They turn their heads, expectant,
- or maybe they are speaking
- in their trembling long legged way,
- the way a girl will tremble,
- not yet knowing that her body
- is leading her to pleasure.
- The horses turn their gaze
- towards the gate.
- Their lashes catch the light
- before it fades.
Sick to death
- There’s a photograph of you on my desk:
- your knowing smile a month before you died.
- You in your soft black coat, standing
- just inside the door
- at your friend’s house. The last time you were there.
- I talk to that picture all the time, I did just now.
- Kenny D, I say, (I used to call you by your rap name
- for the laughs) I’m sick to death of my filthy glasses.
- I can’t see. Sick to death of winter.
- Sick to death of Covid, whatever it’s called today.
- Sick to death of loneliness, and
- all this booming silence.
- Sick of the sound the fridge makes, and the pump
- droning on at night. A dog who snores and growls
- while fast asleep. The rasping of
- my toenails on the sheets.
- Wind outside. The repetition of my breaths.
- Days going on so slowly, then night, then another day.
- I’m sick of goddamn everything.
- But you were the one truly sick to death,
- and even weeks before the end, you were the one
- to look it squarely in the eye, and smile.
Revelation
- When the surgeons cut him open
- did they startle at his flaming heart?
- They must have thought they found a saint
- inside a velvet painting.
- He would have laughed at that.
- Yet his heart was so luminous
- he once drove for two hours
- to look for our boy who called,
- crying and wandering the streets.
- The boy didn’t know exactly where he was
- but said he was afraid and very tired,
- his father was driving and driving
- and suddenly saw him, it was two a.m.,
- he was there, head down, walking.
- His father pulled him to safety,
- he cut through the night
- and took him into his arms.
- How did they find each other?
- Drawn together in a miracle
- through the Ottawa streets:
- one ruined boy in a black hoodie,
- one man driving a dark car,
- heart ablaze.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
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