If Eye have one question
for my X Dr Blair
It’s why did he let his enraged wife in
to My House 23 years ago
to find me naked on the bed
while he held her back
and offering nothing to cover me
said into her right ear:
“TAKE A LOOK”
??
Eye am dressed all wrong
For today when my X called
2 call me harsh names
Sitting illuminated
by the Frost Park Fountain
3-tiered and glittering
Eye wait for my daughter Eliza
to finish her motorcycle course–
I’m in Yarmouth
on the Western Edge of The Province
facing West
with the sun trickling
through a curtain
of man-made rain
Dr Blair wrote to me
that he loved my toes —
what about the rest of me?
Where is he now?
And whose toes is he after
23 years later?
Two of my favourite sounds:
Rain & Ocean Surf —
The sounds of water
in motion.
Last night Eye had a Coors Edge
at an outdoor cafe
in Shelburne
where Eye sat for hours
to take in the sights
of traffic and people —
Today Eye went out
to The Cape —
the three-mile long
spit of stone and sand, white sand
& green dunes
upon which is anchored
the one hundred foot high Cape Light
which shines
into my bedroom window —
out there upon its tree-less wilderness
Eye saw an orange butterfly
heading somewhere
& found a beverage can
faded to its aluminum sheen
& saw a one-legged man
sun bathing with an artificial leg
propped up against his beach chair.
There’s a line of light
beyond the scrub spruce
jutting against the monochromatic sky
which Eye could paint
if Eye painted that way —
butt Eye paint with found objects
abstractly
and the view Eye behold
is painted in M(eye) Mind
Selling my mother’s book
at the Western Nova Scotia
Exhibition Eye have seen
many kinds of people
in time to the music
including a Mexican family tending
an adolescent in a wheelchair
who was fed sips of water
in time to the music
as his father listened
to The Mariachi Band
& fanned his son
with a towel
in time to the music
as the painted Senoritas
flounced their wide red skirts
in time to the music
& a very young girl watching
bounced herself around
in time to the music
& Eye watched
an Indian woman in Red & Gold
dance for an imaginary lover
in time to the music
Joanna Gilman Hyde 