Joanna Gilman Hyde

"Good Morning, World!"

WINTER SCAPE

The Hawk Kitchen 9:27am

I See Life Flicker

On This Coldest Of Mornings:

Birds Among Berries

THE GARLAND

The Hawk Dining Room 2:00pm

Last night Eliza strung A Garland

out of popcorn & dried orange circles —

She hung It over Our Dining Room Window

with Its view of sky & water

— I stood before It —

The Garland dipped at nose level

I smelled The Smell of Delicacy

I stood back to view

The Subtle Transparency

of One Curling Slice

angled against the clearing clouds

DEATH OF A GRANDFATHER

The Hawk Dining Room 9:26pm

The Sky Is Leaded Silver

The Ocean Molten

After The First Snowfall

Of Any Import

My Car Is Facing East

To Melt The Remainder

Of What I’ve Brushed

Ready To Go Mail

My Son’s Birthday Card

ALIEN PACKAGE

The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:30pm

What if You put into The Hands

of a 15th Century Native American*

Who had no way of knowing there would be

a 21st —

put in His Hands

an unopened, resealable package of frozen

Wild Jumble Berries?

*Who would have called Himself something different

PESTILENCE

The Hawk Queen Bed 12:40pm

I am The Black Crow Lady

right fist clutching at My Heart

No More Supper For My Family

No Care As To Where The Food Comes From

Or Who Makes It

No More Ears For The Radio

only rain & sleet can calm Me now

No More quiet “Good Night”

I am about to yell out

a song so wild

You will wish Your Tinnitus

could consume You

PETULANCE

The Hawk Queen Bed 9:18am

I am in A Black Mood

but there is Power in My Madness

for I can wield The Hand

of Time

I can carry out My Wish

of no sickness within the scope

of My Reality

I can make Black Magic

into Child’s Play

and conduct The Truth

through My Fingers

TONIGHT

The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:41pm

My Husband has given up

on trying to talk any sense

into Me.

He claims He no longer has any opinion

on what psychiatric diagnosis

might be responsible for My Skewered Reality.

He claims He will never speak again

of His Theory as to why I latched on

to a Little Scottish Doctor four days after

My Mother Died:

His Fifteen-year-old Theory that I had a symbiotic relationship

with My Mother, transferred onto The Little Man.

That My Husband may never discuss this subject again

should be a relief to Me

yet I find My Self in the foulest of moods.

Maybe I am getting

a menopausal period.

FUCK EVERYTHING

The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:55pm

He & I are Black Jesus

crawling out of The Depths

of filth & squalor

out of Lies & Untruths

clawing Our Way Out

of The World Today, Tonight

into The Sublime

of misunderstood Union

HOW DO I EXIST?

The Tomato-coloured Couch 3:56pm

I am The Little Girl —

stomach stuffed with Dipped Digestives

& Ginger Snaps

I am The Filthy Crow —

crazed & caged above A Cathedral-ceilinged

Living Room

I am The Entity Within —

pulsating to life

alerting My Gut, & so Me

to the impossibility

of Reconciliation

THE FIRST LIGHT

December 8, 2013 The Hawk West Desk Window 10:30pm

My First Summer With My First Husband

We Built a 10′ x 15′ Post-and-Beam House

The Thoreau House

On McNutt Island

Our First Night

We Shone an Oil Lamp

From Its Southern Window

and Went Outside To Look