thehinterlandonline:thecactusland:corrina_hodgson

 

Lunch 1

That was the day we got sunburned,
And strolled through the cemetery
Calling names and dates aloud;
Refusing to show piety
Or even proper respect.
Tromping over the sunken bits
Where caskets had rotted
Where the worms had done their thing
And moved on.
Your dog (hers?) pissed on headstones
Uprooted empty wreath stands
Behaved like an animal
Making a day of it.

That was the day we gave ourselves blisters,
Walking for miles past pretty shops
And nobody questioned, looked twice,
Asked if we were related
With your graying hair
My unlined face.
They merely played with the dog
As we passed the leash from hand to hand
Depending on who had to duck
In to borrow the facilities
Or wanted their fingers free to touch
The wares displayed along the sea
Both of us quite comfortable with reaching.

That was the day we lunched for an hour
Ignored our smarting skin, our whining feet.
The dog tied outside
Begging small comfort
While we played at curried rice and ginger snaps
Passing time until the wife (yours?)
Had to be picked up
And we bundled into the truck, all three,
Me relegated to the back
With a panting dog
Carefully polite
Not giving anything away.

Save a smattering of freckles
Across glowing skin
And the ferry dock embrace
A hair too long
And the taste of curry and ginger
that has yet to clear my mouth.

 


Bearing Fruit

"I dreamt of you last night."

He tells me this rambling
Picnic-bound toward
Our afternoon of
Almost-intimacy
And organic cheese.

"You came to me holding
A pillowcase full
Of apple cores."

And I laugh
At how near
The far-reaching truth
He came.

Had he been awake
He would have discovered
Me
Trembling
Outside his door
With nothing to offer.

 


All I Could Ask of a Miracle

How is it that you managed
(In the middle of such confusion
And hemorrhaged logic)
To string the numbers together
In the necessary sequence
To find me on the other end?
And
Where did you find the courage
To speak to me
After so much time
Had slipped in silence?
And
Why didn't you tell me
That you loved me
Earlier
When it might have made
Some difference?

(And
What now?
Only
What now?)

 


Lunch 2

When the journeys had both passed
And we returned, restless-eyed and paper-skinned,
We found each other
Strange.

Same hands, same smiles
Same silences mid-conversation
Where private voices beckon
And encroach;

It was the hollow chests
That caught us out.
Nothing striving
Between ribbed prisons.

Yours, usually catastrophically paced,
Now suddenly still
>From drugged and hazy walks
On impossibly tidy grounds.

I had thrown mine away,
Intentionally,
Some three months earlier
>From a ferry passing Pender.

(No one spoke of breakdowns
No one spoke.)

But still we managed
Tiny mouthfuls of carrots,
Brilliant orange,
Where once we talked our bellies full.




all poems copyright 2000 corrina hodgson [reprint only with author's consent]