The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:47pm
What Is The Intrinsic Value
Of One Human Life
— Where — On This Planet —
Or Anywhere Else?
Is There Somewhere We Could Go
Where We Each Would Be Worth
All The Silver, All The Gold
On Some Other Planet — What If
It Didn’t Have Any — What If
It Had A Plethora Of Diamonds?
In My Book, We Better Stick
With What We Know
& I Know Each Of Us
Cannot Be Measured
Any Where
By Any Thing
The Hawk Living Room 7:30pm
Eliza’s Roses this week
will not end up the dried out buds
of every previous batch
This Week They have unfurled —
One even revealing Its Perfect Whirl
within The Orange Nautilus
of My Mind
The Hawk West Desk Window 1:40pm
This Body, dressed in space-spattered silk
is destined to be Something
Big in This Universe
This Body Is Being Saved
for The Voyage of An Eternal Lifetime
bound by One Other: Star Man
Who Heeds The Call
of Other Worlds
where Time Travel
means growing
superficially younger
& where Gardens of Eden
Come Ten To A Block
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:20pm
Within The Cauldron Of The Sun
Countless Stars Are Born
To Live Upon The Earth
Within Their Hazards
And Their Glory
–
We Live These Lives
Knowing Or Not Our Destinies
Until We Funnel Back In
Into The Sun Again
Leaving Our Shadows
Over This Eternal Playground
The Hawk Corner Room 3:30pm
I wear An Open Heart Watch
on My Right Arm
A Silver Band on My Left
My Question Mark Ring
I deliberately flashed
when I last saw Him
nodding
over The Bed of My X
Father-in-law
3:50pm
I plunge into My Day Dream
snug in Eliza’s Corner Room
with a cup of Earl Grey
in front of The Picture Window
framing The Reason
I am Here
The Hawk Living Room 3:11pm
Guess how old I was
when I engaged
in the following activities:
–
Tearing into strips
the striped vinyl cover
to My Dollies’ changing table
& wadding the shreds
up in My Fists
to stuff in My Mother’s
waste paper basket
–
Clutching Two Hundred Wedding Photos
to My Chest & throwing Them
One By One
to The Night
along the ample length
of water frontage
in the Town of Shelburne
–
Emptying The Entire Contents
of My Second Husband’s Brief Case
cradling The Papers in My Arms
casting Them aside
Piece By Piece
into The Twilight
along one mile of old rail road track
through Barrington Passage
–
On a clear day in June
Shredding Five Known Copies
of My Own Manuscript
So Long Sam
taking seven hours
consuming as many beers
& putting Three Bags Full
out by the side of the road
The Hawk Kitchen 8:52am
The Blue-grey Clouds
sitting low
over The Slate-grey Ocean
are My Call
to drink
from The Horizon
The Tomato-coloured Couch 4:00pm
He tagged Me a “Seer”
& leapt upon Me
when I aspired toward God —
He made Me fall in love
lasting through two decades
through two husbands
both of whom
cannot understand
Joanna Gilman Hyde 