LITERARY MOTHER
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:35pm
I caught an internal breath
after hanging The Preserved Newspaper Clipping
from The New York Times Book Review
dated June 4,1978 —
“Be A Literary Critic! Earn Big Bucks!”
hung first by Scotch Tape
in My Mother’s Valley Cottage Study
now hung, framed, in My Hawk Kitchen —
Did My Heart Really Skip
as I thought of My Literary Mother
Who, when I was eleven,
redacted Nova Scotia’s License Plate Slogan
“Canada’s Ocean Play Ground”
with black electricians tape?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 