Joanna Gilman Hyde

If Eye could write an Ode

2 His Eyes

It would be blue

and changeable

2 match every shirt

Eye picked out

Eye have A Black Heart

atop M(eye) Tree of Desire

upside down It becomes

The Seat

of M(eye) Sexuality

cold as the grand arrangement

of colourless balls and trinkets

carefully placed to surround

M(eye) Emblem of Jesus

suspended above a lower bough

You told me repeatedly

Eye was The Love of Your Life

and then said

“YOU KILLED IT”

How — Eye would like to know

when You got a girlfriend

“Not Much 2 Look At”

while Eye have had no one

2 fill

M(eye) Life’s Desire

The Way You Did

Today Eye am going to put

My Emblem of Female Genitalia

up in my bedroom, where it belongs

trimmed in black lace

and silver stars

and perched with a glass squirrel

— My Mother’s Sentiment —

for how She saw Her Self

Eye have moved

from Thunder Bay

into the cover of darkness

brandished across my mouth and nose

for my provincially regulated 14 days

I am expected to remain

in my humble surroundings

with 5 cats

and one attentive neighbour

volunteering to get

my groceries

Eye once pretended

to be a grandmother

to a giant dog of white

Eye bought him toys

for children —

to add to his delight —

a shark of pink

a little seal

a whale for a babe

These toys of fluff

were thrown to him

destroyed for his avail

Looking east I see

The Sleeping Giant

lolling in the lake

and at my feet

a stream hushes

the early morning lights

of three ships

nestled before it

On May 8, 2017

I completed a beautiful painting

The first in many years

and the first of its type

with applied 3 dimensional objects

— these were silver butterflies —

emerging from a seething mass of black

Chaos

against a smattering of cherry red

and lime green

with one silver winged symbol of freedom

Unscathed

ornamenting the upper right hand space

but for last night’s jostling

upheaval

of failed marriage

lonely occupancy

in my house stuffed

with my subsequent outpouring of art

The silver butterfly, the escapee

is broken now

with one half a wing

glued beside it

never to be replaced

Those long-necked

Ladies of Leisure

Drop dead

On queen-size bed spreads

Leaving us

Their husbands

Their cigarettes