my taffy experience

Talking to you is like pulling taffy, I think. My taffy experience is minimal.

Kevin and I drove to Florida in February of 2004. He was homeless at the time, sleeping in his buddy's storage locker. He did odd jobs, and had saved enough money to "follow the sun," as he liked to say.

On the road, we slept at rest stops and ate at a different Cracker Barrel every night. The further south we got, the more hushed our voices became when discussing the war and our views on George W. Bush. It was an election year.

Kevin and I stayed in my uncle's condo in Miami. He wasn't going down that year because work was being done on the balconies and 'jackhammers just don't sound like a vacation.'

(Did I mention I had just been hired at a real estate office? I had just been hired at a real estate office. I was to start work on the Monday after arriving back in Toronto.)

Kevin and I spent our days at the least expensive places. Mostly we hung out at the beach, buying 'cold tea' at Bean Dream on the Broadwalk when we were thirsty. A guy named Brian who worked there gave us free muffins because his mother used to live in Hamilton, Ontario. Kevin and I also liked to go to the Port of Miami to watch the cruise ships arrive and depart.

(Did I mention we were in love? In the northern hemisphere the constellation Orion is only visible in winter. It's warm enough in Florida in February to stargaze for hours. When I see Orion, in Toronto, in the cold, I always think of Kevin.)

Here's where the taffy comes in: On our last day in Miami, at the Port, I bought a box of saltwater taffy to share with my new coworkers back in Toronto. There was a cartoon map of Florida on the box, and the pieces of taffy were small and round and pastel-coloured. I worried about them melting until West Virginia.

This is what happened next: The condo balconies were fixed and painted white. Kevin and I considered getting married, but he ended up moving to Sacramento, California. When my assistant manager ate a piece of yellow taffy, it dislodged a filling and she never really liked me after that. George W. Bush won the election.

I met you, and talking to you is like pulling taffy. I think.

ant camp

When we were five years old
Tina and I ran an ant camp.

It was a bucket of water
with some grass in it.

I would pinch up black ants
and drop them in.
Free swimming lessons.

Tina would revive the drowning ones,
muttering comfort. I thought
they should have tried harder.

I guess she had more
compassion than I did.

Nineteen years later I fell down
in the wet grass. Tina whispered:
How does your thorax feel?

I laughed and laughed
but I had to stop. It was
beginning to hurt my thorax.

a little love

You are a canary
flying out of my mouth.

You are a two-tone
bumper sticker
of David Suzuki's face.

You are the itch
on my elbow.

You are my grade seven
math teacher from Latvia.

You are pointing
to a constellation
I can't see.

You are the mortgage
on a small house
in Pickering.

You are carrots, red pepper,
cucumber and Hidden Valley dip
at a reception.

You are no fun
on Mondays.


Edit: This poem appearing in Twaddle 3, 2008

clarke institute: triage

Our grieving bursts a pipe.
We eye each other and the door
as we begin to float.

'We're locked in, see?
We are each one of us
drowning already.'

A man with Rasputin eyes
crawls into his own cupped hands.
I can't tell whose shoes I'm wearing.

'He who is without shame,
bang on the door!'

I am handed a four-inch snorkel.
Looking down I see rows
of white plastic chair-fish.

Our heads bob against the ceiling
like a Whack-A-Mole game.
We sputter.

'I was never told
the side effects
of breathing.'

A man with a Rasputin beard dives
and isn't seen again.

The air goes and I wince as gills
appear on my neck. We are now
each one of us aquatic.


Edit: This poem appearing in Twaddle 3, 2008

really he goes awry

Sometimes as a writing exercise I sit down at the keyboard and type whatever words come into my head. I like to try to keep a sentence structure because long lists of disparate words can be quite boring. Here's a sample of today's efforts:

The green way out is the sum of the rafts and fortitude of fevers. Can't gorging help the rivers flow? What toes hurt the palms? Yellow proper fog and the rays of ghosts on the nightstand. Here is a boy and really he goes awry. Tomorrow petals will get wet. Growing dangerous seeds and packing right hand rites. Get up lowly and get dressed. Fortune says without finding secret habitats. Reservoir today has candles licked. Party dances kill the forgetful mountains with four hammers and western forgeries. Plato replies bandages. Hello happenstance tying down the law. Gopher dolls verbs and toys and killer queens. Decisive nagging ring finger tunes.

it could be the atlantic

On the raft, yellow--

aren't they always yellow?

He is dead, his bones dry

and dry, fingernails

yellow. This

is where I am today.

Soon, I am skeleton too

and my yellow teeth jostle

on the raft

in the waves.

There is a bird and seven

birds and I'm getting thirsty.

In the yellow raft that is

always yellow my left femur

lifts its twin and starts to,

I don't know, paddle?

Edit: This poem appearing in Twaddle 3, 2008

(poem by H.D.)

The Pool

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you— banded one?

- H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

bungalow song

For Ryan Bird on his moving day

There was never more of a place for me

than that rock.

The rock, we called it,

though it really was a boulder or

a rounded mountain

on the corner of our corner lot.

I keep the memory in the tips

of the fingers on my right hand

and in the taste of

banana-flavoured popsicles.

I knew every speck, every

quartzy vein, moreso than

the specks and veins of my

grandmother's hands

as she watered the aloe

plants and the red tulip

and the yellow one.

There was never a more mine thing

than that rock, a look-out post

with the bungalow at my back.

I kept us all safe.

In the summer I could

watch raindrops evaporate

from the stored warmth and I

imagined the rock and the earth

could breathe with me.

It's gone now, the property sold

and scaped to some other taste.

I didn't think anyone

could move that rock.

The house, the tulips

and my grandmother's

blue plastic watering can:

It was the last time I can remember

wanting to take care of something.