coupling thunder
always at dawn
nascent daily
symphonic noise
jolting awake
lulled again
only trains
only trains
evaporate beach
winter, summer
landmarks stay
vaguely new
tides baptismal
driftwood pummelled
shifted storms
shifted storms
stories breathing
taut in skin
parallel plots
meeting rooms
soft acquiescence
now we see
we overlap
we overlap
face in the water stream
niagara of golden light
distraction from cells
draining away
refuge from
this infinitesimal
falling to pieces
I recall your
hand on my hip
the way you lift
my cheek a little and
hold it there
meanwhile pieces of me
alarmingly wash away
my fingers slide on wet tiles
trying to catch this moment
and the sense of you
and golden light
and life itself
a mistake of sunshine
dust dances at your feet
I gaze at your coffee spoon
avoid green half-truths
in your eyes, your face
the eye still pursues what we
don’t want to see – once-
you had no desire to be
guarded with me
insistent on sandals
toes freeze
as fall descends
I grasp summer’s
heat, the way it radiates
possibility
pale tepid sun
beckons socks and sweaters –
prophylactics
I wrote a poem
about yearning
tried to pull you into me
like sun on skin
sinking deep in pores
worked to overwhelm
your coyness
you stayed like
a sweater worn casually
for a time then the
armour – wool socks to my
bare, painted toes
I stare down this mid- life restlessness, this feeling that it isn’t enough, that I am bursting with love that I can’t seem to find a home for and think of those clichés about tending one’s own garden, know somehow I am tending mine wrong, and the love that I give is parceled up, “friend,” “lover,” as if our hearts are glass, “love isn’t nice, we are meant to break our hearts and love the wrong people”, and I swoon every time, mostly encounter indifference, and that hurts, I try not to harden, want to look badass but not actually be that way, maybe love is a tap and I should turn mine on and let anyone take from it what he wants, more or less, and I will drink from his, whatever he shares, and not worry, not want so badly to be out in the snow with Nicholas Cage having him say, “I love you, and I want you to come inside and get in my bed”
he wears a slim band on his left hand
scratches the ring on the testing stone
explains about the bottles of acid
18 carat, 15 carat, 14 carat, 10
I notice the day’s price of gold on
a white board – changeable
pour the acid there
the right one illuminates the gold
the jewellers were on 10th avenue
he was angry and lurking in the back
she placated, seemed nervous
I wanted something simple, unusual
white gold that swirled from
smooth to gnarled patterns
he never wanted a ring
didn’t want to be branded
didn’t mind that I would be
man with the slim band weighs the ring
plugs numbers into his computer
carat times weight times today’s price
the ring wasn’t ready on time
came in over budget
their marriage was on the rocks
the shop closed soon after
everything portent in hindsight
pour the right acid on a ring
and its true character
shines through
rainstorm, and my hot flash and I
are out out in the garden
naked we feel the grass wet under our feet
and the rain drip down over
our hair to our breasts
our belly and ass jiggle as we jump among
the azaleas, pink in full bloom,
and feel better than we’ve felt all day
as the breeze touches the moisture on our chest
and arms and aching feet and
brings the temperature down a notch
so our veins rescind, and our sweat dries
and our pulse slows
cool, sexy,
glorious cool,
my hot flash and I fucking salute you
I wake early and often
sweat springing from
my neck, my feet, my collarbone
the change of life, or one of many
I’ve been trying to write a poem
about a tightrope, but I no longer
know why, or care
the connection isn’t clear
something about being
tied in knots
holding, binding
an image in my mind
of me suspended, cocoon like
sagging into the ropes
even as I struggle to
break free
it’s a mirror of sorts
that life I get up and live each day
the one where I am tied
to work, to home
to the same worn paths
I’ve now walked for decades
I return to the tightrope
and that elusive balance
and the way the rope is never ending
but some things end – most end
thus the night sweats
and the binds
real and imagined
and the rope
and the urge to let it all go
and fall
I can’t find my therapist
streets of Yaletown look the same
I blame gentrification
wax bars and custom tailors
capitalist sea of things
I can’t afford, don’t understand,
don’t want, don’t need
Kafkaesque this
ten years of confusion
Kafka would also lose
his way in Yaletown
I say to my therapist,
“I got lost again,” and he says
“You are here, on time”
he notices what I do well
while my focus is elsewhere
why can’t I find
a way to his office that
doesn’t find me, ten minutes
prior to my appointment,
gazing at the blo bar, the juice bar,
the distillery, wondering,
where the fuck am I?
Tai chi shoes, he wore, left them at my house
I mailed them, but he’d flown south
I trace his travels in shoes
Here crows fly east at dusk every day
ritual magic carpet
rides – adventure in the sky
map of North America in the light
finger slides here, florida
I trace his travels in shoes
mom sent sandals to Athens but I’d left
for London – that was the past
long ago, when I had wings
he needed walking shoes spent weeks searching
cobblestones found size twelve Keds
I trace his travels in shoes
view from my window busy chickadees
flutter honeysuckle buds
constant motion, ready flight
I trace his travels in shoes
Taryn Thomson 