The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:45pm
Look Out Children
‘cuz here I come
to colour Your World
in Pink & Gold
from Horizon to Horizon
I’m here to show You
True Blue
the ancient cauldrons
of desire
for leadership
of decades
aeons
The Hawk Queen Bed 8:57pm
Yesterday on The Trail
in Barrington Bay
I heard The Willets
The Sound of Childhood
in Jordan Bay
My Grandfather wrote
about The Willet’s song
in Anchorage Northeast:
“My own ear has seldom caught “Willet”
in the famous and far-piercing call.
To me it is pilly-will-wee,
with the accent on the last syllable,
or pill-wee-wee, with the accent
on the second,
in either case repeated over and over
and virtually always in flight.
It is a high, hurrying, questioning cry,
urgent of something I can only imagine,
a glad sound on the bird’s coursings of the shore,
a call of fulfillment(sic)
and the June-morning glory
of being alive and a-wing.”
Howard Talbot Walden 2nd
Anchorage Northeast p.189
The Hawk Living Room 1:30pm
Is It Too Trite
to write about My Old Bike
getting thrown out in the trash
along with My Cross Country Skis
Eliza doesn’t want —
My Ex Husband called this morning
promting the question
does anybody still want
My Teal 3-Speed I got for My Thirteenth Birthday?
Eliza said “no” & I said
“Are You putting it out by the road
for somebody to take?”
The Hawk West Desk Window 10:11pm
When My Husband Holds My Left Forearm
I Am In The Child’s Embrace
I Must Grow Up Into My Self
& Be The Woman Now
Without My Mother, The Single Parent
for I had no father
The Hawk Family Room 4:49pm
My Daughter Eliza handed Me
the tail end of a smoothie
strawberry froth
lining the bottom of a glass
I slurped the remnants of berry seeds
and minuscule bubbles
leaving a spherical star-scape
tilted toward the sun —
a pink piece
of The Universal Puzzle
The Hawk West Desk Window 7:36pm
I wore My Blue Nose Dress
red sleeveless top, blue skirt
with white linear arrows appliquéd
on front, pointing up
— or were they pointing down?
It was The Outfit I remember
of all My Childhood Ferry Crossings
driven from Valley Cottage, New York
by a sleep-deprived Mother
to Bar Harbour, Maine’s Blue Nose Port
— with a younger Brother I barely remember —
driven and ferried every summer to Nova Scotia
The Province I would stay in
all My Adult Life —
married twice
with the lives & death of My 2.4 Children —
to live in old houses
on an island
on the mainland in woods named Atlantic
in an historic town named Shelburne
in a doctor’s big white castle in Barrington Passage
& now a new house
— new island —
on the point farthest south:
The Hawk, Cape Sable Island
where My Second Husband sleeps
on low blood pressure
while maintaining His high pressure job
taking care of nearly half the population
this end of the county —
and what do I do?
I am a housewife —
The Laziest In The World
according to My Daughter
& I Write To Tell The World
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:40pm
I hear The Waves
My Backdrop to The Peepers
with My Husband’s Warm Hand
across My Left Arm
I am in My Cradle
My Bassinet
I will lie here
until
I die
The Hawk 4:50pm
I sing My Heart out
for every sailor Who comes along
for My Son Who’s later than expected
driving from Montreal
with an Australian
ready to take in Nova Scotia
–
I stumble over being A Mother
to My 25 year-old Son
skipping stones as if He were 9
& I forgot to buy more beer
in case He & His Buddy come back
before the obligatory good-bye
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:25pm
In The Mid-nineties
I lay in bed for weeks
unbathed
wanting to die
not caring for my family
— why write it here —
here where I am happy & satisfied?
because I am in a lull
& I don’t have My Two-year-old Daughter
tearing covers off Me
insisting, “Mom — get up —
Yer Starvin'”
Joanna Gilman Hyde 