Song for Barbie

Why do I suspect it did not
go well for you, bright light?
In our four-corner village, you
flared briefly.

Radiant Walker by Nicole Bauberger

If I coloured in the lines, you
barely noticed the page,
crayoning instead the windows,
the skies beyond. Wild child,

I remember a circle of girls
in gym class, asked in turn
to invent a dance move,
yours a full-body slide none

of us would try, you laughing,
plumped into cut-offs and tube
top. Tall poppy, when I worked
in the general store, customers

by the meat cooler
gossiped about the woman
at the counter covered in love bites.
Black sheep, of course the woman

was you – free love, free rein, free
form, freedom just another word
for outside the circle, off the
charts, over the edge, nothing left

to lose.

Song for Leonard

He has visions too, our Leonard. He saw the Queen
of Heaven and will build a cabinet for her of black
cherry wood, with seven drawers. And there’s the
mountain lion that comes to have its paw bandaged,

and a key broken in its lock. We call them visions.
Visions is the kinder word. Where Leonard sits
in his chair at the front of the general store
he may not appear to be a prophet. He’s not

shaving much now. Or washing. He put his car
in the ditch – the deep, steep, water-filled one
along Chiswick Line – and walked away. He shouldn’t
be driving, we all agree, but whose job is it to stop

him? We will laugh behind his back or to his face
but come to him when needed, with rides, snow-
clearing, casseroles; community’s rounds of damage
and undoing. Leonard, Leonard: this is the mercy,

the frayed and beautiful mercy in this world.
Leonard, here’s your coffee; here’s your
chair. Sit. Talk a while.