The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 10:22am
Last Night M(EYE) Husband
had to come into Eliza’s Room
to kiss Me Good-night —
He remarked that I looked
so small
tucked into
Her Big High Bed
The Hawk Corner Room 7:07pm
Olly The Gull
came from His Nesting Grounds
on The South End of McNutt’s Island
stolen by Me
in My 13th Year —
raised on bread and milk
taken up to The Island House Rooftop
and told to fly
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:16pm
EYE can lie around
M(EYE) House
like a cat
listening to the radio
and contemplating the art
veiled statues
while M(EYE) Husband
writes a long letter
to a former Lover
of M(EYE) Mother’s
Who knew Me
as The Child
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 10:22am
My Ten-thousand Square Foot Painting
still EXISTS
albeit underground
in two unwieldy bundles
somewhere within the confines
of The Orangetown Dump
in Rockland County, New York
where I grew up
The Hawk West Desk Window 5:25pm
I learned the word “Sanctuary”
from My Mother
Who had it written
on a weathered shingle
nailed to a tree along
the trail We blazed
to The North East Bluff
of McNutt’s Island —
She wrote a passage below
that word, which,
if My Brother were alive
He would remember
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 8:13pm
I went to sleep
how many nights?
in My Summer Child’s Room
in Jordan Bay, Nova Scotia
the oldest child of a single mother
from the sixties —
in that little room at the head of the stairs
I saw The Sun against
My Far Wall
and I tried to close the curtains
but The Light came in
anyway and I
went to sleep
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 8:29pm
First & Foremost I am
A Human Being —
I come from the planet Earth
where I made My Self
from the mesh of molten rock
& the salt from endless waves.
I came to My Human Form
through My Mother, primarily
though My Father
gave Her Lie-sense.
I was born into a world
of tumult
@ The Exact Right Time
to become what I am Today:
A Woman Understood
October 5th, The Hawk Queen Bed 10:40pm
I have installed a family
of stuffed animals & dolls
in a finished basement window
in order to unpack
dusty cardboard boxes
flattened for recycling —
I have placed My Brother’s Anne of Green Gables
as The Baby Sitter
over hard-headed “twins” from the 30’s
My Stuffed Bear “Bear Bear”
in a bright red mantel over a pink bath robe
a squirrel to represent My Mother’s Presence
& a hand-made cloth doll from China
–
*Grandfather Bobby Hyde’s sister Helen who lived in a studio apartment in NYC, drinking gin in the morning next to her full-sized loom and talked to me of a family who lived in her sky light.
Joanna Gilman Hyde 