Joanna Gilman Hyde

The sky is the colour of salmon

The horizon is streaked with gold

Filaments of autumn

Laid out straight —

My rising to behold

Early light laced through

The neighbour’s tree through the clouds

The sun as Eye write

One Night on the NY State Thruway

Eye drove with a silver haired

CBC executive

On into the night

And he said to me

Alone as we were:

“Ahh to keep driving

On into the night”

How many beds have I made

For Dr Blair

But not for my self?

I have the bed in my grafitti-ed room

And have had no one in it

But cats —

Here I am

Again in a place

Of less than domesticity

And I have spread

A laundered quilt

Across a bed

Of complicity

I saw a dog

In a doorless doorway

Crouched across with his paws

Dangling

Above

A stairless step

He bled his apology

Onto the frontpiece

Of A Treatise On Insanity

But, somehow,

I found it to be as hollow

As his kiss

Eye know a cult leader

Who’s very good in bed

He uses women

To gain his ground

In spite of what is said

He has his fans

Everywhere

Out of the woodwork

And onto His Page

Beware! Beware!

When EYE play

Locked away

Inside His Cage

Or roll

Or role

Yes, eye sleep

With graffiti

Plastered across

From me

A cross too

For safe keeping

Or self

Manipulation

Eye Am The Healing

Eye Am The Opiate

Eye Am The New Dawn

Touch Me Once

Touch Me Twice

Touch Me Once Again:

Eye Am For The World

I sat on the end

Of the bed waiting for him

To come up the stairs