every branch, every wire is frozen clean around

i cannot spell strathacona.
i left that language in the steam over the city,
cumulo-nimbus pulling out from smokestacks
and bleeding off into the white,
the white of the fog,
the white of your skin,
the white of the drifts, the flakes, the banks.

white fingers out across the road as we cut
an insistent streak of grey, travelling the wrong way.
the white waves over these hills,
over these stands of trees,
over those clumps of hedge.
i do not understand the speed at which we crash
through the troughs of these swells.
i do not understand the geography that pulls the land into unfamiliar shapes.
where is the distraction of green pines?
where is the distraction of faded grass?


there is more truth in these hills than I am accustomed to;
the sweep of white frothing out like a sheet of static,
settling over the slow curves of the ground.

noli me tangere

My dearest sister, my Margaret,
You must forgive the scarcity of letters from me. You would not believe the hardships we have had to endure. This winter is unlike any I’ve yet to live through. The snow piles up to the base of the windows. It’s as if the house were built down into the earth. It is peculiar this year in that the snow not only blankets every surface but also smothers each extremity; every branch, every wire is frozen clean around with white. The stand of trees outside the kitchen, the old maples seem studded with feathers. I was watching them this morning as water boiled for coffee. I kept expecting them to shake off their soil and beat their branches into the sky.
Prices are rising sharply for every supply. I’ve not had butter or sugar in almost three weeks. Luckily, Charles and I have been able to keep the children sheltered from the understanding of how harshly this season is affecting us. We’ve plenty of firewood and a surplus of canned vegetables. If nothing else, we will struggle through this season.
I have been having that dream again. The one with the wolves. In this most recent one, I am in the kitchen punching down dough for the day. I am wrapped in the soft light of the morning, the perfume of yeast, and the occupation of my hands in something simple. It is not my kitchen here, but the one of the house when we were girls, all expanse and grey stone. I remember how chill the stones would be as we slunk in to steal cakes after cook had left. I am barefoot in my dream. I am wearing a simple grey dress and a muslin apron. The stones are cool on my feet. The dough is warm beneath my fists. Gasps of air escape it as I strike it. The ceramic bowl rattles against the rough wood of the work table. In my dream I close my eyes and imagine that I am Mother. Oh, how I miss Mother. She is the one who taught us to bake our first loaves. I close my eyes and feel that I am Mother. I have her hands, the pinky finger ground down by the corn mill. I have her simple flowered dress, her ravenous laugh. I feel the weight of her history, but cannot recall it. In my dream, I know I am not alone. I turn around, keeping my eyes closed. It is important that I think that I am Mother. If I opened my eyes I would check my hands and see my pinky stuck with bread dough. I would see it long and slender instead of the compressed shape left by the corn mill. I reach down and feel the fur of a wolf, grasp between his shoulders. I take a clump of fur in my dough-stuck hand. I follow as the wolf walks. I leave the bread dough behind. Out the door my eyelids flare weak red in the morning light. I hear the clamor of the geese as we cross the yard. I hear the gasp of the goose girl. I hear the grass rustle against my skirt.
I feel as if I have been wolf for thousands of years. I can recall moving through the pines in pursuit of prey. I have felt thousands of nights in the dew on my fur. I have hunted deer, cattle, sheep and in leaner times smaller prey. I have lost myself in the rush of paws through the undergrowth, the saliva slavers from my lolling tongue. The woodland floor moves underpaw as I track, sunlight dapples my fur dark and light.I have run for countless hours, always ending in the kill, the metallic flare flashing back from my muzzle, rushing down my throat. Margaret, you must believe me when I say that I do not want to stop when I eat the heart, the liver and the lungs first. I do not touch the contents of an herbivore’s stomach. I do not understand how I know to eat the leg muscles next. I remember the past smells of brothers and sisters. I do not know how I speak in strings of vowels, chill and mournful, slipping from my throat. The strings of silver from my pack move off into the sky and splash against each other. I watch them weave in the moonlight. The worst part of this, Margaret, is that I take pleasure in losing myself. It feels like coming home – as if I can almost remember how to move a part of myself I had forgotten existed.
Do you remember when Father decided for us to move out of the city? How Mother resisted. Of course you don’t, you were only an infant then. It was my duty to hold you on the long drive out. You were silent the entire time, your eyes opened wider than I had seen them. I held you up to the window so you could take in the change in landscape. Expansive swells of grey-green grass nodding in the wind beneath that endless grey sky. There always seemed to be a forest on the edge of the horizon. Pines hemmed us in. I remember how lonely the house looked as we pulled up the drive. After the crowd of the city, Hillford Shire seemed a sentinel against the surrounding wild. Why did Father choose to move us so far?
Margaret, I know all their names. To call them names seems so crude. Each name is a collection of sensation, a bundling of memory, or narrative. To call another was to pass through that memory. Margaret, my eyes glinted gold in the light. My name was in those eyes. They held the last light of the sun as it sank beneath the treetops. I flared with that final burst, all urgency and passing. Margaret, I know all their smells. I remember all the twists of scent. I remember Charles, and the children’s scent, Mother’s, yours. Human scent is soft. It is like the bubbles in a glass of beer, pale and passing in the gold and then the cannonade of froth. I remember you in the scent of school desks and needlework. I remember you in the smell of cinnamon buns in the oven and conversations by the light of a lantern. I remember you in the smell of snow. Have been thinking of you often in this winter.
You were old enough to remember when they found Mother. Do you remember? She has resisted our move, but took the land instantly. Do you remember her garden? She was satisfied with the neat rows at first, but started to venture to the forest for its herbs, its fungus, the seclusion of its shade. She took to the land, but the forest took her. Do you remember the quiet that crept over her? It clouded her eyes, ate at the edges of her laugh. She had trouble remembering us. Your laugh could always call her back. You were the one who found her body. You came running to me, in a fit. I was punching down dough, helping cook in the kitchen. I always felt guilty for slipping cakes. I went with you and we found her torn and red. We buried her alone in the trees and at supper told Father what had happened. He stopped eating and understood.
In my dream, Charles comes to live on the edge of the forest. I come to him from time to time, but always melt away back into the woods. We pass the years bound like this. His patience carves lines into his face. I have felt a thousand lives, Margaret. I have had gallons of blood pump through these veins. I have tasted meat, just killed. I have brought litters upon litters into the woods. I have taught the young to scent, to stalk, the hunt. I have gone off to die countless times. Age dusts my pelt with grey. I meld back into the briars, the brambles, the clump of blackberries.
You must believe me, Margaret, that I am entirely beside myself when I awake. Usually I have startled Charles in thrashing in my sleep and he is there, holding me as I awake. I do not know what I would do if he were not clasping me about the shoulders. Each time I wake, it feels harder to remember who it is I am. Please do not mention this to any of the Aunts. I have enough of their attention as things stand. This winter will pass as will these dreams. I hope this letter finds you well and peaceful. They are both luxuries in this world.

fuck buddies

this is the green and brown of the trees as we smeared out against the december sky. how my mouth filled with the aching taste of blue as we learned to fly: your wings shaded like the jay you rescued in my front yard. mine spanning out like those of the albatross .
this is the way i have rolled you in my mouth and found you sour.
this is the way the hair on your chest sweeps along the ribs, looking like a flock of geese in flight.
this is the corner of my eye where you flash flannel plaid in the peripheary of my vision.
this is my reflection in the glass of your sunroom doors, pale and insubstantial with my face warped by the glasses weft.
this is the rush of wind as the hawk falls towards its prey. this is the silence of a wolf in the undergrowth. this is the clack your claws make on the linoleum as you come up behind me while i am making potato salad.
this is a lonely night in the kitchen with only a lamp on. i will remember this in a radiator popping at my feet. i will remember this as the dull sound that drifts in the window as in the backyard you carve a cave out of the night. it is winter. a drift is forming on the sill. your paws track snow when you make your way in, early in the morning. i am sitting at the table playing solitaire. you ask me what’s to eat as you settle into the chair across from me.
this is your hand splayed in my chest hair, your knees bending mine. i will remember this in the stunned seconds i wake up in. i will remember this in you breathing deep and even, clutching me. my fingers follow your spine, a line of breadcrumbs.
this is a cricket’s song that only i can hear. a chorus of a thousand thousand calling out in a wash of silver.
this is the rush of startled quail bursting out of the long grass.
this is the way you’ve lost the past tense, sloughed it off like a snake’s skin and left it in my bedroom. a pile in the middle of the rug.
this is the clatter of your engine, the unique tick of your piston’s pump. in my dreams, i am blinded by your headlights as your engine brattles behind them. each blade of grass, each brick of the driveway leaps out in sharp relief. i will remember this in urgency.
this is the quiet hour of the night where you seek me out. your snout guides you true to me where you nuzzle against the warmth of my flesh.
this is the scrape of metal against the inside of my ribcage.

this is the letter i mailed:
when i say you approach me, do i not mean
that my understanding of your hand
comes against your understanding of my back?
the wake my fingers leave trailing across your chest
is sentences in your mind.
when i say i miss you, do i not mean
that i have not seen the particular aperture of your pupil
in quite some time?

Leuconostoc Mesenteroides dominates, producing a mix of acids, alcohol, and aroma compounds.

He stands in the open doorway of the fridge in his underwear. The chill light spills out behind him in the dark. Fog curls from the walls of the fridge in response to the sticky summer air. He fishes a pickled peach from the jar in the fridge. A bit of juice escapes and runs down in his beard. He closes the fridge door and pads through the dining room into the sunroom. He sits on the old woven couch and watches the long street. Headlights play across the windows as gravel in the driveway crunches under wheels. The headlights cast shadows, foreign and long, against the far wall. He listens to the car door open and close. He fishes another peach from the jar. The dogs run out of the bedroom and stand at the door, heads cocked at odd angles. The clicking of the deadbolt echoes through the house. He watches Eric walk by and into the bedroom.
“I’m here,” he calls.
Eric walks into the sunroom.
“Want a peach?” He asks, holding out the jar. The brine in the jar sloshes. The peaches swim in circles. “You look handsome in the dark, suits your complexion,” he says, taking a bite of peach.
“What?” Eric laughs, sinking onto the couch next to him. He wraps an olive arm around his chest and pushes his face into his neck, in the curve above the shoulder. “What are you doing out here?” he asks, his words muffled.
“I was just thinking about Canada,” he says, taking another bite of peach.
“You just dribbled peach juice on my face.”
“The porcupines like the taste of the glue used in the plywood, so they come out at night and I remember the sound of them chewing on the eaves of the cabin. Your tires in the driveway sounded like that grinding.” He takes another bite of peach.

He smells lilac bushes in a dream and wakes with a start. The wine bottles rattle as he tosses them in the recycling bin. He checks the mail and finds six notices from the bank. He cuts himself while doing the dishes, the good knife, the Christmas gift from his roommate’s sister, finding the soft meat of his palm. His shoes creak. He seals the envelope. The cards clatter as he shuffles them. He takes the film off the frozen lasagna, the heat rolling out from the oven and coaxing a ring of sweat from the base of his hairline. He brushes his hand across his thigh, dusting his jeans with the orange powder of the Cheetohs. His phone lights up as he types on the keypad. He organizes the book case in alphabetical order first from a to z and then the reverse. The doorknob to his apartment comes off in his hand as he turns it. He passes the stack of past-due library books as he leaves, the pile tilting against the wall, a mountain of dimes, growing slowly. The marshmallow burns the roof of his mouth as he pulls it off the stick. The tea kettle hums a low chord. He pops the top of the bottle. The sounds waves reach him, soft and golden. He places more spinach than he thinks necessary for the dish in the pan, knowing it will wilt down further than he expects. He bends down to tie his shoe and remembers his childhood friend, the one that got the tennis shoes he wanted, the ones that pumped up, and how he had burned to own them.

He hadn’t planned for tonight to turn out the way it did. He hadn’t expected the drinks being as strong as they were. He didn’t know he would turn the corner and see him. He didn’t anticipate getting loud and pushing through the crowd out into the chill of the evening. He left his helmet at the bar. He left his debit card too. The fluorescent lights of the gas station bathroom play across his face, drawing out gaunt shapes. He vomits in the sink. Sweat crawls down to his nose and hangs there. It’s a bad idea to ride your bike this drunk. A pain fires between his third and fourth ribs. He holds his hand to his side as he breathes. “Fuck, I’m out of shape,” he says, spitting into the sink.

The egg cracks unevenly as he taps it against the side of the bowl, several small pieces of shell crawling down the side to the batter. He scatters the crumbs in the bottom of his paper bag under the table, watching as a few finches work up the courage to dart under and claim them. He peeks out the bottom right-hand corner of the living room window, sneaking a look at the person ringing the door bell. The eyes of the fresh-caught squid seem to follow him as he passes the fish stall at the market. His oar cuts into the water, the canoe rocking gently with the shifting of his weight. He puts a pot of coffee on. He eyes his grandfather warily as he accepts the plate with a pimento cheese sandwich on it. The waitress stands over him, tapping her order pad with a pencil. He picks up his roommate’s pumice stone in the shower, and thinking of her, rubbing it against her foot - one hand bracing against the tub wall - sets it back and rinses his hands in the water. The car’s thermostat dial clicks as he turns it to defrost. In his dream, he finds a manatee while snorkeling, several ribbons of red curling out from her back where she met with a motorboat. He sets several pieces of bacon in the skillet, the fat spitting as it hits the pan.

“I rode all the way over here with a fucking cast-iron skillet – open the fucking door.”
The deadbolt clicks and the door swings open.
Eric is standing in the entryway. He crosses his arms and doesn’t move.
“I couldn’t call. I don’t have your number.” He stands on the stoop, bike resting against his hip. “Can I come in?”
Eric steps aside.
He wheels his bike in and leans it against the fireplace. “Can I get some water?” he asks.
“I’ll grab it,” Eric says and walks out of the room.
He sits on the couch. It is deep and his legs stick out. He hears the faucet shut off and scoots forward so he can bend his knees.
Eric returns and holds out the water. He remains standing.
“Do you wanna sit?”
He sits on the edge of the cushion at the far end.
“So you finally brought my skillet back.”
“Yeah, I cooked some with it, but didn’t wash it.”
“Only took you, what, two of my skillets ruined to learn that?” he asks, smiling.
“I’ll never forget it.”
“I bet you won’t.”
He pulls the skillet out of his bag and sets it on the ground. Eric’s dog ambles over and sniffs it. He reaches over and scratches between his shoulder blades. The dog starts licking the pan.
“I also brought your Roseanne box set,” he says, pulling it out of the bag, “it’s just too good.”
“I’ve been relying on reruns on cable,” Eric says scooting closer on the couch and snatching the box.
“Damn, can’t wait?”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says. “What else you got in there?”
“I found your Jeep’s service manual in a drawer the other week,” he says, pulling it out and setting it on the arm of the couch.
Eric leans over and fishes through the books and notebooks in the bag. “You getting rid of this too?” he asks, pulling out a plastic zombie figurine.
“That just stays in my bag,” he says grabbing the zombie away. He drags it in a lurch across the couch cushion. “He’s been watching my back. Eating brains. Living the life.”
“The undead life.”
Silence grows between them, broken only by the noise of the dog still licking the pan on the floor.
“You know that’s gross, right?” He says, nudging the pan with his shoe.
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, let me be the first to tell you.”
“I’d still go back in the house for you,” Eric says.
“What?” he asks, turning to face him.
Eric scratches his beard and looks at him from the corner of his eye. “You heard me.”
“You need to work on your nonchalant act.”
Eric laughs.
“Do you remember the time,” he begins, “we were playing zombies and I got so mad at Victoria?
“And so drunk,” Eric interrupts.
“Oh, come on, not that drunk.”
“You’re talking about the time she got the skateboard and made it to the helipad and you flipped the board over?”
“No, the other time.”
“When I used dynamite to clear the helipad?”
“Yeah.”
“You were drunk then too.”
“Ah, well.”
“I’ve lost about half my zombies from you flipping boards over.”
“I’ll buy you a new pack. Don’t worry, It’s a small price to pay.
“Zombies and cast-iron skillets?” Eric asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Worthwhile.”

He holds the banana to the side of his head, mimicking a telephone. He picks at the scab above his left eyebrow. He grabs an old woman’s shoulder, bracing himself against the lurch of the bus. He picks at the apple seed stuck between his two front teeth. When it’s quiet, he can hear his sunburned shoulders crackle as he moves them. He watches the man’s jaw line move as he talks. He wakes with a start as the bookshelf next to his bed crashes into his dresser. He watches as his roommate embroiders a tiger. He pours the frosting over the petit fours. He quickly counts the bartender’s freckles as he orders. He picks up the tissue paper on Christmas morning, folding it and placing it in the gift wrap box in the closet. He buttons his cardigan. He moves his queen to take his opponent’s rook. He moves left on the bench as the girl across from him blows smoke in his face. He pulls a fudgesicle out of the freezer. He swears as the train terminal rejects his swipe card. He eats pancakes, dipping each bite in a pool of syrup on a separate plate. He twirls his fork, trying to break the string of cheese traveling back to the plate. He throws a book across the room at the roach. The chickens in the back yard, pecking beneath his bedroom window at pebbles and insects call to one another and wake him.

He rolls over on his back and pulls the Afghan throw over his head. The light from the lamp next to the bed winks through the spaces the crochet hook did not braid. Even though he has just washed it, it smells like the old house. There, underneath the April Spring Fresh is a smell less commercial: old, dog, a comforting must. He stretches his arm out from under it and pushes the fabric across his teeth. It squeaks – the fibers of the wool vibrating against the stridulations of his teeth. He pulls his arm back under and wiggles his fingers through the holes – rings on his fingers, no bells for the toes. He knows it’s a matter of time until the smell of this house will settle on the blanket: the onions his roommate always cooks with, the peach brine he spilled, and the cut of chill he swears is from whatever’s haunting the house.

what are poets but vultures, circling for the choicest meats

i am sitting on the beach with you,
where the land bleeds off at the seam into the water,
and the water bleeds black into the night.
you are just a silhouette,
silver backlit by the easy moon as you say,
“i know it’s cliché, but those boats on the horizon make me feel lonely.”

i have felt this same aimless longing
standing in the velvet of the waves
as the foam snapped out along the sand.
why is it that you and i and everyone before can feel this
here at the sifting of the water?
in the rain on a window upon waking.
in the smoke of a cigarette stitching out from your hand.

there is truth in that which is trite,
a clumsy filmy light groping along what it illumes;
yet we dare not speak words so bare and bromide,
we confide as an aside or beneath the night
that moments in our lives are significant.
we are all a crude poetry,
the long days, moments of metaphor sliding past before we can hem them to us.

Michael Maestlin Called to Say that It's Just One Decimal Place Off

do you remember what you've dreamed? the notion is silly. It resembles a clown-faced tenderness. do you remember the blackberry bush in the backyard that would bloom in spring. do you still have that scar from slipping in the brambles? do you remember late nights with just the kitchen light ? there is a longing for you, for those afternoons and evenings. it was new for a moment. everything dissolves in days. i have come to you across thousands of pines. you were a finger width away last night as i checked the map. mexico was periwinkle stretching out below. does distance signify endless desire. have you been back to the island in the river we camped on? there's a woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that black birch. do you still agree with Hass about each particular being the falling off from a first world of undivided light? we caught in the muddy places. the father's body is the numinous flesh. do your r's still look like m's when you try to write in cursive? did you send your elegy by correspondence? did you save my drawings? the words are hanging on one thousand walls. my hair is in your hands. the places remember how love was made. did you manage to braid your beta keratins? did you take to the sky on feathers foreign and wrong? i love the orange silver of your shoulders. the leaves are turning a shade reminiscent of you. it is all about the old. after a while, I understood. do you hurt? do you still wonder at the grief? i have drunk my weight in wine one thousand times. have you been thinking? are you at a loss? this world is almost a boat. sometimes i can feel the small fish beneath the willows. was there a woman? i felt her presence like a thin wire of salt. it hardly had to do with her. do you feel you have your justice? you've been lingering in my whiskey. have you found continuing pleasure? who rests their weight full against your collarbone these days? does your voice still sound the same, a soft rumble washed out by the noise around it? i'm still allergic to bee stings. i've been roasting pumpkinseeds this fall. do you ever remember the taste of the shoulder? do you think of the scent of the arm? is your thirst still tragic? i am still drunk. are you still querulous in the mornings? do you still take that tone? i felt dismantled in the thing you said. have you made friends? do you still bake your own bread? i've stitched you in the cotton running out beneath the floorboards. did you find your clarity? i've only got the general idea. i swear it's been that way since childhood. are you still sometimes violent? would you still mock me when I say words like luminous? where are you holding on?


if it comes to blows, i will lay you out.

i have carved my hame in the kitchen table, the "j" drawling out beneath your butter knife.

i have stayed up late
smoking joints with my roommate again.
we lost most thursdays this way,
burning it from its end
until all we have left is a handful of vowels and hours before morning’s light.
“home is where the heart is,”
i say, setting my bourbon on Aubrey’s desk, “and the thing about that is,
how do you find your heart before it’s too late?”
the ice in my glass catches the lamplight
- sending it out in flashes again and again,
laving across his face, and before i reach the end
of my statement, he turns from his computer and rolls his eyes my way.
this is the way
things usually go between us, and it is
the closest i’ve come to home since the end
of my first one: coming home late
one night and fighting with my father again
in the kitchen, the bulb over the stove, under the hood, the only light.
i’ve yet to forget that light,
the way it seemed all soft yellows,
and if i could do it again –
well, it doesn’t really matter, the reality is
that it’s far too late
for that. regardless if you expect or want it, an end is an end.
i have had too many ends
already. watched the snuffing out of too much light.
it feels as if i am arriving a moment late,
that if i had taken another way,
the shortcut i’ve been meaning to try, i’d show up before everyone is
saying goodbye. again.

again,
i will come in at an end.
the truth is,
the light
only ever illuminates the way
that seems to make me late.

i’d like to not be late again
and for my wandering way to end.
aubrey’s light is still on.