With a confusion of bracelets
upon My Left Wrist
and double watches on My Right
Eye gesture to My Mother’s Book
McNutt’s Island Journal
and put forth My Sales Pitch
to anyone who will listen
This evening is beautiful
mild & quiet
butt Eye will not be walking
on the beach
as that would exemplify
M(eye) aloneness
which Eye am finding hard
to bear
Oh to be Gully
sitting, standing, on the deck rail
preening & stretching
He doesn’t care
that He is alone —
Oh, He just flew off
After hearing about Rogers’
shut down
on CBC Radio
Eye listened attentively to samples
of a women’s pro-choice protest in Washington D.C.
(My Mother almost marched there
against the Viet Nam War butt
got rear-ended at a toll booth instead)
and on CIFA Radio
Helen Reddy sang out
“BUT I AM STILL AN EMBRYO
with a long long way to go –“
Yesterday Eye saw My Self
in long sleeveless Navy
with Peak’s Haida Silver Eagle
flitting over My Cleavage —
Eye was meeting Eliza at the airport
and went into Tim Horton’s first
to order a large decaf with triple cream —
My Hair was out
My Figure full
and Eye felt
GOOD
W/ Mouli Bouli purring against me
Eye sit at the top of my red stairs
w/ black railing
& black motif drips
on each riser
2 write of this morning’s accomplishment:
unloaded my Chevy Malibu of 50 pieces
of work, my art
Eye am very proud of
exhibited at Th’Yarc
for the month just passed —
packed each piece away
in my art room/ office
except for the very last:
My Biographical Sign
hung in The Corner Room
next to “Iridescence”
also titled “Nova Scotia”
There are plenty of men
with whom
Eye wish Eye had never gone to bed —
probably all of them
for there was never one
who stood out above all the rest —
concerning “Love” that is —
the first was a French Jew Dope Dealer
living with his mother
and fathering a little boy —
the last was, oh, who was that?
And with none of them
did Eye find Myself
in the throes of ecstatic “True Love”
(whatever THAT is)
Oh! Woe Is Me…
Eye have grown
A field of Daisies
Well
I’ve allowed Them to grow.
Yesterday Eye ran over a chipmunk
On m(eye) way to Yarmouth
& hit a bird
On m(eye) way home.
Eye used to take drives
W/ Dr Blair
& we never killed anything.
If He Still Loved Me
He Wouldn’t Be An Asshole
Now Would He — Would He??
My first time watching
a robin
getting a worm
was just now
at my front step
amidst the buttercups
He ate it in three bites
hopped a little
and flew away
Today
I’m visiting
a new beach for me
Sand Hills
in Barrington Bay
and someone has built
a stone-lined walkway
along a sandy path
into the water —
there’s no surf here
only the steady murmur of incoming tide
over out-stretched sand
plenty wide
for hundreds of visitors —
only here on The South Shore
beaches are nearly bare
barren but for the occasional
seeker of solitude.
The families have left —
it’s supper time —
and Eye have walked out
over the flatness
having found a large quahog shell
the interior of which
holds an expanse
of mineral glaze
so much like the beach itself
it becomes my souvenir.
Joanna Gilman Hyde 