<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My father\u2019s father came
\nwith songs in seven tongues
\nand no-one to sing them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His Polish elbowed German, Dutch
\nand Yiddish to hear a flat vernacular
\npush liver pills on sidewalks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
while his children learned his language
\nbut picked up English
\neasy as fielders scooping ground balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have no accent.
\nI\u2019ve never felt my face
\ngo fresh ingot hot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
from being laughed off buses,
\nfrom money found no good
\nfor a box of ten penny nails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was never patronized by little dogs
\nand the phonemes
\nat the end of the leash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know what it means to sing
\nwith rags crammed in my mouth.
\nAnd I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if I found myself rigid
\non an X of coloured tape,
\ncondemned to projecting forever<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in a darkened hall
\nin all the keys at once
\nto ushers fast asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll know a mother\u2019s love by the stains
\non her apron. So what does it mean that hers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
is bleached clean? Maybe just that she can roll
\na tabletop of dough or chop an armload of beets<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or halt a desperate chicken to feed her children
\nwith minimal emotion, a talent shared with cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sighs up the stairs from the cellar,
\nsack of spuds an obvious cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there she is, beating confessions from a rug
\non the porch or scrubbing baseboards and floors<\/p>\n\n\n\n
till dirt\u2019s a half-remembered slight.
\nAnd you, staring, always the dreamer, mouth open<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like a turkey, she says, a turkey drowning in the rain.
\nWhen she\u2019s had enough she sends you out<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to fish for marlin, to moil for gold, to follow
\nJim downriver. Wells has summed up history<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and Britannica\u2019s bit on Poland is dog-eared and worn.
\nThere\u2019s no evidence that she understands or will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she accepts and that is enough. Sometimes love
\nis a thing you catch with bare hands, carefully,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so as not to crush it. A thing to raise in a crate
\nlined with straw. A thing to feed and feed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
though it doesn\u2019t grow, or do more than hunker
\nin the furthest corner of its blanket-covered box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mother was from a town called Alfred,
\nwhere love sounded like<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the creaking boards beneath a rag rug, or Montr\u00e9al crackling through a Bakelite cathedral. knew enough to boil Eden\u2019s apples and young men saw the serpent meant for soft white catfish lips. where faith was smoother A place where the first pink of dawn and the last red of evening was a spark A place where you rose from bed your not-quite adulthood jabbed awake when you hesitated gathering eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n i. ii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drive a screw with a chisel iii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So many reasons Evening rabbit kittens He doesn\u2019t know He squirms free twice He doesn\u2019t know He trains in the Zen of dread, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Canadian Raising My father\u2019s father came with songs in seven tongues and no-one to sing them to. His Polish elbowed German, Dutch and Yiddish to hear a flat vernacular push liver pills on sidewalks, while his children learned his language but picked up English easy as fielders scooping ground balls. I have no accent. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5257,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions\/5257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe horror vacui<\/em> of fiddles<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nA place where young women<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ndown to sweet-tart jelly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nas a worm on a hook<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nA place with a plain church and ornate Jesus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthan the polished face of a tombstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwas raspberry stained from that morning\u2019s picking<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthat lit the soot that clogged your chimney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nknowing that dreams were for the sleeping,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nby a sun that pecked like a hen<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a>Lumbering<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nMy heart was the first thing
\nfather built me out of wood.
\nThe work of a master,
\nas if the tree had grown it.
\nIt was shaped like a drawer
\nhe liked to open, proud
\nof how neatly it would shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n<\/em>he\u2019d say
\nand when you need a chisel
\n<\/em>you got a screwdriver.
\n<\/em>Just to be safe
\nI also keep the latter
\nimpossibly sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwhy the actual size of love
\nis different from the nominal.
\nSo many reasons why
\na cut into the grain
\ntends to bind,
\nwhy we call it a rip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a>Evening Rabbit Kittens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nhave empty rabbit thoughts
\nlike this one
\nwith the mushin<\/em> no-mind
\nof flight from the window well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthe neighbour\u2019s dog is blind,
\nthere\u2019s no fox for miles,
\nand from my reaching glove
\nhe\u2019s expecting death,
\nnot an act of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nto land where I grabbed him
\nthen rockets from my hands
\ntoward the hedge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthat people are confined to bed
\nand wheezing through plugs and hoses,
\nthat statues are coming down
\nin gestures to the dead,
\nthat weeds are being planted
\nfor pollinating bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nlike a boy whose father\u2019s touch
\nconceals the strength of two big men
\nwhen one
\nis more than enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n