22/365: Forty and Twenty

At forty, I write
about the past, what came then.
I look in and back.
At twenty, it was desire.
Without myself, I looked out.



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The above poem is based on the Japanese tanka.

21/365: Always Apart

I went
up north by car
to see trees and water,
to forget electricity,
and sleep,
but I remembered two things there:
rest never comes easy,
and I'm alone
always.

Tree lines
muddy you up,
smudge your definitions,
wander off with your known body.
You're left —
skin stretched out dry in the pine air,
dirt's colour in your nose,
stiff feet tired —
apart.



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The above poem is a series of two Butterfly Cinquains, each of which is a nine-line syllabic verse that follows the pattern 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2.

20/365: Soap and Cigarettes

My nose pressed into the left breast pocket
of the shirt with the small pearl buttons,
the ones that went snap snap snap down a tidy row,
interrupting lines of plaid
with the rhythm of smooth, round stones.
I ran my hand along them bump bump bump.

The pocket smelled of sweet raisin and wood,
the notes of damp tobacco wrapped in paper,
and the hand on my head of Ivory soap,
just washed after a secret smoke,
soft and clean and dirty,
leaving a trail I could track along my skin,
later,
when we sat through church.

I crawl up under that hand, head on that shirt,
when I feel the nostalgic thump,
and the buttons go bump bump bump,
again,
under my former fingertips running,
echoing the remembered rhythm
of the heart inside a chest
that was younger then
than my heart now
beating out its own pattern
separate from these tapping fingers
running through time.

19/365: Dry Isolation

I sit on a chair,
perch, unsure of my station
while others drink beer,
yelling, laughing about age.
I'm dry in isolation.



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The above poem is based on the Japanese tanka.

18/365: Ed Norton Fantasy Poem #2

Ed Norton,
did I ever tell you about those times
I practiced kissing my pillow,
and how I would turn it over to the cool side
to pretend I was kissing someone outside
in Canada?

Back then, I didn't know about you,
but when I look back
and think about my pillow case's satin piping
and how it felt both dry and soft
against my fervid lips,
it all comes to a bright, shining point of clarity:
all of this was for you.

Those fervid lips, I tell you,
they were in the throes of a deep need
only a twelve-year-old girl
and Fate can understand,
a need that would have a pillow in 1985
retroactively named Ed
to marry fate to fate,
a kiss's ultimate beginning with its inevitable end
with one whose lips would finally meet them, too,
twenty-five years later,
and,
Ed Norton,
I think we both know destiny when we see it.

Ed Norton,
you are rich as Egyptian cotton.
Ed Norton,
you are the cool side of my pillow.
Ed Norton, Ed Norton,
oh, Ed Norton,
you are my 600 thread count man.