The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:30pm
If My Old Down-trodden Psychiatrist
could see Me now
cooking chicken & rice
writing 7 or 8 poems a day
loving My Husband
& My Cats
shopping & going to the hairdresser
What Would He Think?
Was/Is She Mad?
How has She Come This Far
& better yet —
Where Is She Going?
The Hawk Portico 5:46pm
I hear The Chickadee
& an outboard motor
& think of My Mother
My Mother traversing the waves
to get out to Mc Nutt Island
A Place I swore never
to forget
yet It has caused Me pain
& grief when She died
but I own Her house no longer
merely some land
which My Children
are destined
to inherit
The Hawk Portico 4:50pm
I’ve learned to latch onto Disappointments
with all the tenacity of a wild-haired dog
— then I beat Them up
with all The Greatness of My Life
& think of these let-downs as transient
substituted by going to The Hairdresser
now
instead of The Therapist
The Hawk Deck 2:22pm
The Crumpled Up Napkin
hovering over My Husband’s Dark Lunch Plate
set with galactic crumbs
looked to Me like God
on His Cloud
allowing Me to decide
to get My Hair done
once a week
The Hawk Deck 11:22am
Looking up through My Sunglasses
I see Magical Bulbous Wisps
of White
lacing across The Immediate Sky
moving like Tentacles of Mist
to The North
where They fade
into Grey Slivers
of Silver
The Hawk Deck 10:40pm
Dressed in My Warm Silver Robe
I have drunk the repletion
of My Life’s Waters so far
I am out on My Deck
on a windless morning
sun ablaze
I am in a haze
of happy Self
Note: written
while My Daughter happens to be
hunting
in Vermont
for one possible surviving copy
of My 364 page
Manuscript
The Hawk Deck 10:12am
How can One Sound
conjure up A Place
and A Time?
— It’s The Call Of The Jay
that does It for Me
That Authoritative Squawk
harkens back to My Childhood
growing up in The Woods
of Rockland County
where I was a bossy child neighbour
and control freak
to My Brother
The Hawk Deck 9:51am
I don’t kill Flies any-more —
if One’s in The House bugging Me
I try to catch It against a window
in The Palm of My Hand
I feel It beating against
My Fingers
until I let It go
outside
The Hawk Family Room 7:50pm
I wouldn’t normally write about laundry lines
but the ones around here
are so endearing
in their neatness
I am compelled to compose
right on the computer
to line up
the biggest towels first
then the hand towels
then all the innumerable
face cloths
and on one line
a copper-coloured sheet set
with pillow cases
spiral-patterned
The Hawk Deck 5:40pm
“I don’t know what to think
about Time.
I can’t put My Finger
on It.”
from a friend of Joanna’s
Joanna Gilman Hyde 