The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:17pm
I can write whatever I want
a privilege not held in all countries
there, where Women are struggling
while I sit in My Sea-side Outpost
wanting to give, will, Them The Power
I have
to fight the wars Their Men
have made
to fight the hunger of Their
babes
what can I do
but write
My Freedom
& hope It spreads?
April 5th, The Hawk West Desk Window 10:50pm
Tonight I Hear The Peepers First
A Sound I Hold So Dear
Heralding My Spring To Me
Allaying All I Fear
Such As Death
So Near To Me
I Read Of Just That Fate
For One Guy F. Tozzoli In New York
Who Permitted Me To Paint
The Tomato-coloured Couch 4:57pm
I’ve been mismatched All My Life
yet all these cock-eyed relationships
have lead to The Castle I now occupy:
My Beautiful Home By The Sea
housing six cats, All My Artwork
& thirty pounds of diaries
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:45pm
I’ve consulted an auctioneer
as to the possibility of selling off
My Family’s Letters, Memorabilia
Battles Between Offspring
& Every Valentine From 1947
to The Early 80’s
when My Grandparents Died —
but My Husband doesn’t think
I should
& My Daughter thinks
I wouldn’t get more than $20.00
The Hawk Kitchen 9:37am
I floated down The Hudson River
on a cloud of pink
baby pink
but I had eyes
& could see My Parents
incestuous playmates
together at The Waterfalls
of Snedens Landing
I impregnated My Mother
& She tried to gallop on a horse
to get rid of Me
but since I stayed
She wanted Me
& stuck to Me like horse glue
The first year of human-hood
was spent in Africa
for My Father to teach Africans
how to drive tractors
& for My Mother to give dinner parties to African Dignataries
where Dr Schweitzer held Me
on His Lap
& looked at My Toes
As soon as My Mother & I came home by freighter
Howard was born
& He became My New Shadow
The Hawk Deck 10:37am
Our Mother raised us single-handedly
while Our Father, back from Africa & Divorced
toiled fruitlessly on a dairy farm
Howard & I grew into
robust teenagers
— He a musician
— I an artist
laden down
by My Mother’s Failed Love Affair
with a famous Jazz Player
Fuck This Shit —
I’m not laden down by anything:
Mother’s Old Lost Love
Her Early Death By Malignant Brain Tumour
My Shower of Unintelligible Light
on March 31st, 1993
Brother’s Dying on a Jail-house Floor
or Years of Depression
with My Daughter’s Early Childhood Memories
of Her Mother Lying In Bed
or Hospitalized for Weeks On End
That Daughter has just finished
washing Her Boyfriend’s
Black Dodge Ram 1500
& It’s Drying
in Perfect
Sun
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:35pm
I caught an internal breath
after hanging The Preserved Newspaper Clipping
from The New York Times Book Review
dated June 4,1978 —
“Be A Literary Critic! Earn Big Bucks!”
hung first by Scotch Tape
in My Mother’s Valley Cottage Study
now hung, framed, in My Hawk Kitchen —
Did My Heart Really Skip
as I thought of My Literary Mother
Who, when I was eleven,
redacted Nova Scotia’s License Plate Slogan
“Canada’s Ocean Play Ground”
with black electricians tape?
The Hawk Family Room 12:45pm
In My Little White Gym Suit
Out On The Most Visible Rooftop
In The Whole Wide World
I Laid Out My Spiral Of Colour
For Humanity
& Let My Hair Down
Dressed In See-thru Black
For The Signing Of A Lifetime
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:11am
I want to go to sleep
with the wind
up in My Turret
at the end of twenty years —
I want to sleep to seventy
& wake up to the noon
of My Old Age
no longer marred
The Hawk Family Room 5:30pm
How Many Old Women
live in houses with ailing men
& have to check the blankets
To See If They’re Still Moving?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 