Saturday, 27 August 2016

the separation

The separation between 
Mary and her hands
deepened after Joan left.
caught in the rolling turn 
of changing times
Joan was sucked from the kitchen
into an opening beyond 
the picket fence.
Needing something other than the life
of a logger’s wife Joan took
small steps that led beyond barrooms
and the haze of smoke and voices
to a difference she constructed.
A change happened one Sunday
over the stove
deftly flipping
white and orange
against the black cast-iron
seasoned by time,
slow heat and fat.
Mary’s challenge shook 
her mother’s body
turned her face and made another
same September impossible
An old taunt new voiced.
“why don’t you fuck off
and do something with your life”.
Familiar words exposed, stripped
of the rasp of tobacco 
and the smell of beer
countless times more potent.
In Joan something moved,
and a primitive fish
turned in Kootenay lake
past the hotsprings 
past the Ferry
west to Nelson,


Joan followed..

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