The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:15am
I Am A Bird In A Cage
not the green & red Sam
when I was a Child
I Am A Single Green & Red Love Bird
unnamed
Whose Mate Has Died
as My Mother was afraid He would
The Hawk Queen Bed 11:22pm
That was My Mother
Who made Me get out
from under the pink hospital sheet
all 111 pounds of Me
to ask The Nurse On Night Shift
to get Me something to eat
“We don’t normally do this,” She said
as I toasted, buttered and ate
six pieces of bread
The Hawk Kitchen 6:35pm
Mother, It’s You
My Kitchen Witch
hanging above The Kitchen Phone
for the first time
since moving to The Hawk
It’s Your Caricature
drawn by Hardy Bulbs ’66
“The Perennial Phlox At Home”
I would have been Five
when Your Surrounding Book Titles
were dreamt up:
Flames of Passion
My Life & Loves — Frank Harris
Forever Amber
Passion & Greed (A Cookbook) Farmer
Lady Loverly’s Chatter
Slang Dictionary
The Passionate Lips
Hungry Hill
Fanny Hill
Candy (& How To Make It)
Naked Lunch (Cookbook)
The Lustful Heart
Passion’s Slave
Lustful Lips
The floral stockings You were wearing
I remember
You were My Great Mother
& I Am Proud
To Be Your Daughter
The Hawk Kitchen 2:22pm
Daughter, It’s Time
to hang Your Red Roses
upside down to dry
It’s Time to Preserve
Their Message
of Love & Devotion & Faith
from The Young Man
Who has You
for Now
The West Desk Window 11:26pm
I have been arranging My Daughter’s Roses
for years it seems
at least since We moved to The Hawk
when bouquets started coming through the front door
from boyfriends and mothers
— some ended up dried
to be arranged again in fake crystal
or an old pewter pitcher —
tonight the heftiest bunch of all
came in with fluid-providing tubes
& baby’s breath to be thrown away
as I clipped twelve stems
stood Them in My heaviest vase
& carried The Arrangement
upstairs to Her Dresser
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
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 Tomato-coloured Couch 7:10pm
What happened to The Effervescent Girl
of Yesterday
Who willingly drove into Shelburne
for lunch & coffee
with Her Daughter
dressed — The Effervescent Girl —
care-free in Her LL Bean Jeans & Blouse
delivering Her Daughter’s grad photo
to be framed
What happened to make today come
where She finds Her Self
tired & sullen
dressed again in black
to drive to Yarmouth
for Her Husband’s CT Scan
to come home to a trapped cat
Who’s made an unwashable mess
on Eliza’s comforter?
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
Joanna Gilman Hyde 