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 Tomato-coloured Couch 7:15pm
America is famous for
Its Movie Stars
Its Giant Meals
Its Wide Open Pages
& It’s Famous For Me
though I have displaced My Self
To An Even Grander Space —
I Am In The New Frontier
of Canada
where endless gallons of water
are pure
where storms melt quickly
where trees get re-forested
& My Children Make Their Lives
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:14pm
Oh Bug I Saw You Again
Against My Beautiful Sunset
Were You Following Me?
Did You Know I’d Been Writing
& Stopped Only To Look?
The Hawk Portico 1:00pm
I sit to watch the roiling ocean
with a ring around the sun
that wind’s still up —
I’ll put the kettle on
The Hawk Corner Room 4:34pm
I just watched 9 Canada Geese
flying North
past My Picture Window —
I’m such a novice birdwatcher
I could only tell They were Geese
by Their Long Necks
(at least I had the sense to count Them)
The Hawk Corner Room 4:00pm
My Childhood Easter Egg
with Its Cellophane Window
Its Interior Hills of Sugar & Paper Bunnies
has opened out in My Adult View
through My Eastern Picture Window
to encompass Our Frosty Shoreline
7 Little Houses
& a School Bus Threading
Its way through Roadside Scrub Spruce
The Hawk Corner Room 5:50pm
Olivia sprang from Her Cord
& headed for both neighbours
on one side of the road
& then the other
where She met The Woods
& Her Owner had to take off
in one maroon vehicle
in nebulous pursuit —
She’s not back yet
but I have to get My Supper —
The Hawk Corner Room 5:00pm
I Own The Perfect View:
180 Degrees, Panoramic
Lined With Ocean & Treetops & Sky
Rocky Shore, Extension of Rolling Surf —
It Is My Haven, My Refuge
I Can Sit Before My Aerial View
For Hours
& Not Wish I Were Anywhere Else
The Hawk Corner Room 11:34am
Today I Saw The Thinnest Line of Birds
Flying North
I Watched Them ‘Till They Vanished
And Lateral Clouds With Single Gulls
Took Over
The Hawk Portico 3:40pm
Blanketed in Eliza’s cream-coloured Horse Throw
Mrs. Blair slouches slightly in Her Red Deck Chair
within the enclosure of Her Stoop
She wears a sun hat to protect a possible cancerous spot
on Her Right Cheek
She wears Her Serengetis
because The Sun is that bright
Her Daughter Eliza, driving Her 2000 Black Lincoln LS
pulls into the front yard announcing
“Mom, You look like an idiot.”
Then for something a little more descriptive:
“You look like a moth,
or someone Who’s trying to look like a moth –”
“A Lunar Moth?”
Joanna Gilman Hyde 