My Graffiti Years
may have begun
when I was a hospital patient
supposedly recovering at home
while My Father visited
& drove Me scheming
to emblazon each of The Town’s public mirrors
with one Gold Emblem
each with the word “God” inscribed
to describe the reflected viewer
Maybe I Should I Have Used Silver Stickers?
I Hear My Waves
Through The Trees
My Fog Has Settled In
In My Chair
I Sit & See
My Years Have Hardly Been
put on Your Tattoo Sweater, Black
fix Yourself an Ice Coffee
–a tall one–
sit on Your Back Deck
with the dishwasher going
& eggplant parmigiana in the oven
Open Your Journal
Aim Your Silver Pen
write
between
his puny
eyes
I Am Goldy Locks
eating @ My Glass Table
eating bananas & cereal
before donning My Glass Slippers
to trip about to find My Prince
(He’s Around Here Somewhere)
& I Won’t Grow Up
or If I Grow Up
I Have The Option
of reclining, ready
In My Glass Coffin
built by 7 Dwarves (Humours)
3 Bears (Instinct)
& 1 Fairy God Mother
(Atheist In Disguise)
The Big Bang Theory
is One Big Sneeze
— if It ever happened —
& here We are
looking for One Big Tissue
& chanting
“God Bless You!”
It’s The Aliens
Who Define Us
as Humans
& It Is Humans
Who Define Us
as God
Oh It was a shock alright —
twenty years after My Mother’s Brain Tumour
and have I recovered?
I think so, at least the waves
are telling Me so, and The Cats, Crows
Willets & Gulls. The Sky tells Me so.
–
I hear a Willet now, over
the Southern End of The Hawk —
I am very happy Here
where nothing can get Me.
She got off The Bus
at Christian Herald Road
& Mountainview Avenue
to climb up The Hill
holding Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
on Her 4th Grade Hip
Title Showing
I did have A Favourite Toy
and I still have Her:
a lopsided little bear
named “Bear Bear”
Who never spoke
She wore a doll’s bathrobe
and sat languidly
in the vicinity
of My Brother’s tough hefty “Bunny”
Who did speak
using a husky guttural voice
Joanna Gilman Hyde 