Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Hawk West Desk Window 7:36pm

I wore My Blue Nose Dress

red sleeveless top, blue skirt

with white linear arrows appliquéd

on front, pointing up

— or were they pointing down?

It was The Outfit I remember

of all My Childhood Ferry Crossings

driven from Valley Cottage, New York

by a sleep-deprived Mother

to Bar Harbour, Maine’s Blue Nose Port

— with a younger Brother I barely remember —

driven and ferried every summer to Nova Scotia

The Province I would stay in

all My Adult Life —

married twice

with the lives & death of My 2.4 Children —

to live in old houses

on an island

on the mainland in woods named Atlantic

in an historic town named Shelburne

in a doctor’s big white castle in Barrington Passage

& now a new house

— new island —

on the point farthest south:

The Hawk, Cape Sable Island

where My Second Husband sleeps

on low blood pressure

while maintaining His high pressure job

taking care of nearly half the population

this end of the county —

and what do I do?

I am a housewife —

The Laziest In The World

according to My Daughter

& I Write To Tell The World