Eliza’s Room 2:30pm
I live in a lavender room
where I have pulled up
the curtain against a backdrop
of rolling waves
and scrub spruce tree tops
above a painted chest
housing My Mother’s Childhood Diaries
I am sanctified
in My Daughter’s Room
where The Out-stretched Quilt
of rippling bands of purple
spreads Itself beneath two walls
of My World Trade Center Rooftop Painting
titled Self Organizing Galaxy
and beneath My Signature
in three-foot-high letters
coloured Black
Me holding My Self-portrait with above portrait of My Mother Elizabeth Walden Hyde by Bernard Taylor 1966 and watercolour of Me as an infant by EB Walden upper right 1961
The Hawk Window Seat 10:52am
Years ago I left a house
with home-made curtains
& wooden floors
My Children both were babies there
& I was young with motherhood
& early marriage I thought was happy
until the onset of a tumour
inside My Mother’s Head
The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:19pm
My Mother’s Brain Tumour
is dying
on the basement floor
is soon to be
enveloped by
perhaps a silver heart
but
the “roots”
will
survive
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:00pm
On This Day in 1991
I was told My Mother wouldn’t live
through the spring
I vowed to My Self
I would not feel the pain
of Her Loss
I kept My Vow
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:17am
The Chickadee is of The Spirit —
My Sweet Departed Mom
The Jay is of My Flesh & Bone
The Colour of Broad Daylight —
My Contemporary Love
The Hawk West Desk Window 8:45pm
Once there was A Little Girl
Whose Mother died before
She was born — She was not scared —
She saw a Shower of Silver Blades
of Light
Four Days Later
It bestowed upon Her The Conviction
of The Existence of God
Twenty One Years Later
The Little Girl made A Gallery
of paintings of Her Mother
along with paintings The Little Girl
had painted Her Self —
She spent Many Hours hanging Her Gallery
down in The Basement
until One Night She & Her Daughter
— Her Daughter was Nineteen —
watched as a photograph of Her Mother’s Island
fell from Its hook
just when The Daughter was asking
“Was that when Your Mother Died?”
No more pictures were hung
except that one —
in a different place —
and The Daughter & The Little Girl
became the best of friends
and grew up together
The End
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:25pm
My Parents have never seen this room
or been anywhere near it —
They’re dead
& I’m glad
so I can enjoy The Rain
on The Skylights
& The Fog Horn
on The Cape
alone
& grown up
Joanna Gilman Hyde 