The Hawk Kitchen 3:15pm
Today I Made Cookies
— it doesn’t matter what kind —
— it doesn’t matter I had to pound
the brown sugar into submission —
— it doesn’t matter They came out with arms & legs —
I Made Cookies
For The First Time
Since Making Hermit Cookies With My Mother
On McNutt Island
over 25 years ago
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:14pm
Oh Bug I Saw You Again
Against My Beautiful Sunset
Were You Following Me?
Did You Know I’d Been Writing
& Stopped Only To Look?
The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:10pm
The Banking World Today
is being taken over
by Big Women & The Small Men Who Love Them —
The Men of Stature
are being pushed out
by Bossy Females
& Their Nugget-headed Partners —
The Men of Stature
try to find pens
to write customers’ notes
on the backs of business cards
while the pretty-faced sized 12 & 14
Women In Charge
explain to Their Nodding Female Customers
There’s A New System
of labelling a check that skips the scanner
as an apparently arbitrary #906
The Hawk Kitchen 11:15am
My House Is Someone
I Have To Hold —
I Put My Arms Around Her
& Hug Her Tight —
She Is Someone
I Care About
I Care Deeply
For My Beautiful Home
& She Glows With Pleasure
The Tomato-coloured Couch 4:15pm
I’m In The Murk
Of Identity Silver —
Our Cherished Cork Flooring
Blanketing The Upstairs —
My Tastes Are Being Tested
As Our New Downstairs Floor Covering
Is Stopped Mid-stream:
Identity Tea Cork Panels For The Family Room
Are Unexpectedly Bevel-edged —
Showing Every Seam
& Personality Metallic Sky For The Living Room/Dining Room
Is Not The Pattern We Picked.
I Am Walled In With Boxes
Of Wicanders Cork Comfort
& A Meeting With Wilson’s Home Hardware
Scheduled For Friday Morning
As They Too Went Uninformed
Not Only As To The Manufacturer’s Changes
In Edging & Patterning —
They Went Uninformed
As To The Core Thinning Of Specs:
A Sudden 10.5mm Of Total Panel Thickness
Downsized From Identity Silver’s Plush 12mm
The Yarmouth Psychiatric Unit, Yarmouth NS
about ten years ago
Take One Firm Believer
Who Thinks She’s It
Throw In A Dose Or Two Of Scepticism
Stir It All Up
Heap On A Prayer
Cook On High
Until Ready To Serve
The Hawk West Desk Window 12:05pm
I Have A New Bible
to Thump —
Open It Clean Down The Middle
& Pummel It With Your Thumbs:
It’s Titled The Joanna Hyde School of Thought —
Believe In Your Self First
then believe in God
The Hawk West Desk Window 5:10pm
If I were God, Which I Am,
I would decree the legalization
of Gay Marriage
the decriminalization of Street Drugs & Prostitution
the illegalization of Abortion
the equalization of God & Humanity
The Hawk Queen Bed 11:50am
On a Grey Day in March
I write The Poem for The 27th
The Day My Two Greatest Losses
befell Me by Fate:
The First was My True Companion —
My Mother made certain of that —
The Second was A Beginning —
The Beginning of A Child
I would never know
as I knew My Mother
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:36pm
If only I could run away
from My Past
& trip headlong into My Future —
but Where would that put Me?
Where then is My Present?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 