The Hawk Kitchen 8:00pm
Purple is The Colour of My Heart
vacated
Silver The Colour of My Jewels —
Red is My Fury
no longer suppressed
These Three Components
sustain Me
now that The Little Man in Black
is Gone
The Hawk West Desk Window 11:12am
The Only Remnants
of My Black Possessions
are This Journal, My Pen
My Black Cat Astro
& One Pair of Jet Bead Earrings
Given To Me
By My Mother
The Tomato-coloured Couch 3:15pm
Today I threw
My Heart away
The One conceived in The Night
& woken to in The Light
of Silver
That Heart was haunting
Me
for 2 decades
of seething
red & black
futility
Now
there is no other
Heart
but
My
Cardiac
Organ
keeping
Me
ALIVE
The Hawk Corner Room NOON
My Shower of Silver Lights
goes untainted
to shine BIGGER & BRIGHTER & BETTER
than It ever was
before
It’s Mine
ALL MINE
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
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
Joanna Gilman Hyde 