The Tomato-coloured Couch 3:33pm
What happened to That Long-haired Girl
Who painted That Giant Canvas
on The Roof of #5 World Trade Center?
I heard She turned 52
& writes in Her Journal
sitting on Her Tomato-coloured Couch
in Her astral-cork-floored living room
surrounded by beaches & dunes
waves & bird life
while Her Son starts a tree-planting job out West
& Her Daughter finishes correspondence courses
for Her Last Year
of High School
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
Barrington Passage 6:15pm
I could sing a song
of cars & women —
all My Husband’s responsibility —
oil for The Lincoln Eliza refuses to drive
beer for My imbibere
& dinner reservations
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'”
The Hawk Living Room 3:15pm
Here, take This Silver-bricked
Highway
out to Your Island
take Your Golden-haired Daughter
out to Her Corral
take Your Silver-haired Husband
out of His Office
fly Your Little Man
over the scrub spruce
out to Your Paradisical Beach
The Hawk West Desk Window 5:00pm
lately I’ve had a twitching
in My Lower Left Eye Lid
— just looked in a mirror —
It’s really there — twitching away
— think It’s trying to tell Me something —
I have Left-headed Pulsations too
which make Me stop
— think of what I’m thinking —
should I get on The Digby Ferry
drive to Vermont
— retrieve My Manuscript —
if It’s still there
to be found in My Step-mother’s
Old Farm House
buried under heaps of papers
— somewhere —
in My Dead Father’s Room?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 