Rudder’s Yarmouth 3:47pm
He carries Me like Christ
He goes before Me on Highways
in traffic tie-ups
I hear His Word
against any bad decision
on My Part
He is embodied
embedded
in My (——-)
The Hawk Corner Room 2:22pm
I was A Child of Letters
Valentines to Grand Parents
folded-over butterfly stationary to A Canadian Boyfriend
round pink stationary to My Mother from My Father’s Farm
I wrote to The Rockland County Journal News
when I was eight going on nine
thanking The Valley Cottage Fire Department
for saving Our Woods from a children’s brushfire
a page of loose-leaf in The 5th Grade to My Father
telling Dad to pay Mom a hundred dollars
a page of loose-leaf in The 6th Grade to A Boy
Who ripped it in half
& into My Teens
to Cousins, Friends
Boys I went to bed with
or wanted to
I wrote letters
to Men in executive offices
in My Early Twenties
I wrote & I wrote
all My Life So Far
like magic I am A Woman of Letters
They have preceded Me
Up Here in My Beautiful Corner Room
looking out over The Atlantic Ocean
with My Husband home from work
& a claw-less Siamese
pawing at The Door
February 9th The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:58pm
The Internet is down
with a Red Exclamation Mark
notifying This Account
of no connection
I am connected
I am tuned in
on My Island attached
by a flooded causeway
to the rest of The Province
to the rest of The World
I could be, am I?
That Server
–
February 10th The Hawk Corner Room Noon
Can You make a poem
out of a News Report
of an eleven-year-old Boy
killed by carbon monoxide poisoning
while a Father shovelled snow
a Son kept warm
by an idling engine?
–
1:00pm
I could be that Determined Girl
Who shut Her Self in Her Room
stared at Her Self in Her Dresser Mirror
until The Glaring Face
moulded It Self into distorted patches
of brooding dark hues
I could have a lock-in
a lock-down
with the radio on for music
but not for News
The Hawk Corner Room 2:43pm
I sit angled on The Couch
half-way facing The Steel-cold Ocean
My Right Arm crooked on a blanket
to hold My Silver Pen
My Knees bent on the edge of a cushion
I am warm
& breathing
The Hawk West Desk Window Noon
Dust Balls — mostly fine cat hair —
gather up in My House
like Galactic Formations
always in the same places
though I just found
a New One
looking like a Chickadees’s Nest
below My Husband’s bedside table
where I stood
to fold His Laundry
The Hawk Corner Room 4:52pm
My Parents have put Me here
really sittin’ pretty
in My Grey Bath Robe
— never dressed today —
— only showered —
padding around in white socks
to settle before My Immaculate View
of Ocean & Sky & occasional long white wave
–
Yes, if it weren’t for My Parents
would I be Here at all?
Tomorrow will be the first anniversary
of My Father’s Quiet Death
March 31st will be the twentieth
of My Mother’s skull-shattering
Expiration
–
and I am left
in the care of My Doctor/Husband
A Man My Mother never met
A Man My Father said would grow too old
–
Yes, I’m sittin’ pretty
in a Present to die for
My Future to live
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:15am
Both My Parents
have not died
for Me
Oh, They’re gone al-right
I just don’t feel Their Absence
It’s as if They never existed
except as Minds
in My Mind
before Me
The Hawk Corner Room 3:53pm
I was That Pouty Child
stomping Her Left Foot
when She couldn’t see
G-O-D written in The Sky
–
Forty-five years later I am
looking at The Clouds
billowing behind streams of flurries
out over The Ocean
when the notion of God
is no longer literal
Joanna Gilman Hyde 