/ when i was small my mother used to perch up on the chesterfield in the living room /
mirror asleep along the top of the cushion / the sun's blood caressing her face / bleeding
through the panes while she plucks her eyebrows / she still does it sure /

                                                     YOU DO YERS D'ERE NOW

\ this is the first time i've been in lawn in fourteen months \ didn't realize that much time
has gone by \

                                           MY JESUS YOU GOT TO COME HOME!
                                IT'S CHRISTMAS B'Y, YER FADDER & GRANDMUDDER
                                          HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN OVER A YEAR

/ i didn't bother trying to explain / how i was in a depressive state /

\ 3 and a half hours scrunched up in the van over the trans canada highway \ 2 masks
glued to our face so we don't bring corona back to the bay \ 1 piss on the side of the road
between marystown and st. lawrence \

/ on our way back / to the house / where i had the cops called on me / when i was 16 / for
being overwhelmingly out of control / can't say i completely disagree /

\ i was somethin' fuckin' else \ besides what my crowd knew how to make a home with \
same spot where i sat at the table with my very first social worker \ doing anger
management i thought i didn't need \

/ it's a mystery to me / how CYFS can force kids between mandatory therapy and juvy /
while the parents are free to quit after one session / how surprising /

\ when i got through the door \ by the christ the whole house was spattered in red green
silver and gold \ ornaments all over the place streeled across every ledge my dear \
snowmen stickers sprinkled along the windows \

/ i have nothing at my apartment / nar decoration nor tree except a whirlwind of ADHD /
how fitting /

\ not a speck of snow on the ground outside \ neither leave on the trees either \

/ i wonder how many christmases will look like this / now that the island has heat records
in august / while the sea level rises /

\ i remembers when judy foote first built the new school \ sure it was closed half winter
long \ couldn't even run a truck through the lot of snow we got \ swallowed the whole
fuckin' guard rail \ and don't even go there about the roads from here to st. lawrence \

/ god love the b'ys who drove the flyers / they were the only thing / that kept us alive
back then / not that i knew the difference anyways / i was only a youngster / glad i had a
week or so off school to spend on the sled / how shrewd /

\ i spent the last year buried in bed or in front of my tv \ trying to find some semblance of
peace \ nearly let myself rot sat criss cross month after month \ something i later found
out you're not supposed to do \ if you plan to walk anywhere anytime soon \

                                                      WHEN YOU FEELS BETTER

/ you'll have to make up for it / at the spasmodique clinique / somewhere i didn't know
existed til i pushed my body far too far / bonsoir mr. pm&r / one more white coat to join
the team just for me / not in crisis but clean up from where i used to be /

\ the nesting place for two giant mats of depression hair \ a recent species of suffering to
me \ beginning with a half hour bent over the tub starting to solve a puzzle i had no idea i
started \ til it was far too gone for me or mom to do anything about \ besides cover my
whole head in conditioner and hope for the best \

/ shampoo'd 3 times prior cause neither of us knows how to read a fuckin' bottle /

                                                  LARD JESUS ITS NOT MY FAULT

\ screams to laughter \ our new normal \

/ and she's still there / holding the shower head / and mine /

                                                   WELL IT NEEDS TO BE DONE

\ it's the first time she's washed my hair \ like this since i was a child \ tugs and all \

                                                           I'M SORRY B'Y
                                               I DON'T MEAN TO HURT YOU

/ long overdue /

\ wash \ rinse \ repeat \

 

 

Botwood

 

I have a second life in present-day Botwood
because grandmother was there
an icon for us to visit
the Botwood Mural Arts Society

aims to resurrect the town through art
painters from all around are invited
to create murals upon old buildings
an echo of the past preserved

Botwood is a shrinking community
attempting to rise from the ashes
as a wonderland for tourists
and soar to heights of glory again

if only it could transform to the paradise of its past
when the watery nest of a harbour
filled with Chinese immigrants
and local loggers living their lives

COVID slowed Botwood’s rebirth
inhibiting travel and tourism
freezing the funeral of an icon
a Chinese immigrant—my grandmother

but when surrendering her ashes
atop her famous store, we saw those murals
heard of jigsaw puzzles and book spin-offs
my second home will be reborn in time

 

 

Listen to Melissa Wong read “Botwood.”

 

Siteseeing #23-28

 
Someone posts crocuses
on Facebook and we are out
the door and across the pasture

wind be damned, sleeping
deer too who boing boing
from slough to hilltop and turn

stunned. Are we real
or some kind of nightmare?
Both I suppose. Just look

at our rubber boots. Dry
most of the way. Finally
we find a single crocus. One.

*

Last year. Ejected from the house
like we were seeds to be dispersed, explosive,
we drove to a park, whose

blown-in litter distracted
from the hairy flowers on hairy stems
of lilac-throated prairie crocuses. (I nearly cried.)

The far side of the park was all flooded
trails & booters but also bare
branches festooned with bittersweet

vines, the empty seed pods
a vivid orange. I felt collected, until someone
asked: “Is that the invasive kind?”

*

The place seemed fine
the last I looked, the snow
in the yard sinking fast

bare patches of grass showing
a tinge of green. I spend
an hour planting sweet peas

in the mud where the drift
has shrunk away. At some point
this afternoon the earth sank

a foot into a trench dug from
road to house three years ago.
Then filled. What now?

*

Last year, I choked on other people’s crocuses,
my shoulders up around my ears
as case counts climbed like

kudzu vines. Last spring, bedroom
communities along the Red River Valley
ring-diked as they waited for the water

to crest. This year, it’s drought,
the river’s gumbo shoulders bare
& shivery. Grassfires & variants of concern.

And crocuses? I find myself harvesting
other people’s pictures
like they were seed packets.

*

I strike the earth again
and again with the rake
and again until I think

my arms will break
right off and fall
in the mess of dead

borage stems. I must
pause to remove fistfuls
of clay from the tines. Plant

as soon as the ground can
be worked, the packet says.
Cover lightly with dirt.

*

Tomorrow, I will drag out the hose
and sit on my front steps
while it gushes

rusty water from Shoal Lake 40
all over the roots of my old elm.
I will be tempted

to drink from the cold metal hose.
I will notice that the stairs need
painting, my boots

dusty. But! Downy fiddleheads
in the garden. Merlins shrieking
overhead.

 

About Ariel Gordon and Brenda Schmidt

Ariel Gordon (she/her) is a Winnipeg/Treaty 1-based writer, editor, and enthusiast. Her latest books are Treed: Walking in Canada’s Urban Forests (Wolsak & Wynn, 2019) and TreeTalk (At Bay Press, 2020), nominated for three Manitoba Book Awards.

 

Brenda Schmidt (she/her) is the author of five books of poetry and one of essays. Her work is included in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English, Tenth Anniversary Edition. She now xeriscapes in extreme drought conditions in rural Saskatchewan.

 

Spontaneous Combustion

 
Half-naked above me in autumn
the flowering crab is laden with hard little apples
the bite that I take leaves a bitter taste
in my throat, the birds will ignore them
all winter long until repeated frosts
soften them and
all else is gone

from far away
the not quite sound of her voice
ghosts my ears, colours fade, a familiar scent rises
worn soft with years, wind-dried cotton, the red quilt
she made for my bed, crabapple shades patchworked
red, pink, green, soft brown, off-white
thinned comfort for my questing

my chilled fingers plunge
bare garden hands deep in fresh shards
bright newcut wood chips piled at the roots
of the crabapple tree, touch warmth
unexpected, feel smoulder, find smoke
stinging the air, burning tears
in my eyes

Water, air, matter. Flesh, bone, breath, blood.
How they can ignite. Every conversation with my mother
has fire in its heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to Susan Wismer read “Spontaneous Combustion.”