March 2017 – Reading at Thunder and Lightning Pub in Sackville , NB

Home Wife

I got strung out

Like laundry whipped and tangled

By a strong wind

I got wrung out

twisted and worn

Like clothes in an old washer

I was wiped out

By a stinking kitchen cloth

Smelling like mold

I wanted to mellow out

Like butter on a counter

I needed to rest

Like a roast right out of the oven

I sat and steeped, like a good cup of tea

My pen dunking into fresh thoughts

Warm water and sugar make tiny eggs of yeast come to life.

Just as words and poetry make my spirits rise.

Cemetery

Falling leaves sound like

Small footsteps behind me,

Ghosts in the cathedral of trees.

An oriental carpet

Lies before me,

Autumn leaves

Scattered.

Incense of sweet bonfires

In this sanctuary of death.

People’s lives lie

Scattered.

Decorated with fake flowers.

Their stories told in haiku

Chiseled in stone.

Still Womb

A ceramic bowl, cream coloured and cracked

Hip bones rising from white flesh

Delicate handles circling the empty womb.

Dimpled, empty vessel

It is a still pool that once whispered life

Gurgled with bubbles, babies and blood,

Now no signs of the cycles of pain, hard labour.

Sown seeds swelling

Her shroud was my raw silk gown

Her head thrown back as if in throes of ecstasy

Eyebrows lifted as if about to speak.

Cold, still, removed

A curve of a rib emerges from the dune of the bed

I will brush the dust off the bleached bone

And reveal the story of her life,

Porous, shifting, mythology.