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Poems

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Labyrinths of Loss

(Published in Descant)

I. Reconstruction 

Far from where tractors grind out new foundations fed by fat pipes of gravel and sand that barge over sidewalks and steel girders clang in place of the bells they succeed and drills buzz like 

summer wasps spinning screws from height to height for sixty stories and glints of glass joust 

and cranes and ladders sway, I seek the enemy 


II. 1944 

Beneath the benign whiteness of Berlin’s sky 

razor-winged bombers once shaved 

these shingles, their fiery cargoes 

plunging, arms bursting, fingers 

of shrapnel gouging 

through roofs and rafters 

blankets and babies 

into basements 

of black earth 


III. 1994 

Half a century has passed but bullet holes remain 

scars I can see, open sores ingrained 

with grime, discoloured hues effaced 

and faded, a depleted palette 

of charcoal 

umber 

ash  


IV. Survivors 

Long after their dread has been transformed 

into tears and tales and monuments 

I tread in the shadow of the wall 

pushing my son’s carriage over cracks 

and rubble down labyrinths of loss 

every breath cherishing a garden in the far 

away land, the new world, white 

chairs under a weeping willow 

where my family stares 

amazed to be alive 

​

V. Köllwitz Platz 

Rain sprinkles the square 

like yesterday 

I reach over to stroke 

his silky hair, circle 

the park again side- 

stepping dogshit 

needles and broken glass 

We settle on a bench 

sheltered by a tree 

He swings his legs eagerly 

chews the rubber nipple 

as I spread liverwurst 

coarse and grey 

onto bread 

​

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Collisions

(Published in The Shape of Content)

Collisions

Hear that? This hamlet – these zigzags of snowy rooftops blue with shadow – is hesitating. And see the clouds? They are weeping crystals! How can those cars, impatient commuters, glide by so unblinking, unaware, indifferent?

   I dig, and I dig for answers. But this soil is already frozen, inert as a comatose mind. Silent as my boy in the hospital.
    A few degrees of frost, ten points on the TSX, a six A.M. summons into my office. Don’t take your bike today, I said, leaving him at his cereal bowl this morning. Who could have predicted the impact?
    It is not like the weight, calibrated on a scale, of gravity pulling to the centre of the earth: a universal force experienced by every root, stone, foot on the ground, every bird, snowflake, star in the sky. Nor is it a measured hit: a vehicle hurling a crash-test dummy at a designated velocity. No, this impact reverberates without end. Splinters of splinters of splinters shatter the infinite facets of our future. Scar all the faces of our past.
    My mother, touching my shoulder and whispering, He’ll be O.K.. They’ll find a way. Her faith.
    How we are confused and deceived! Statistics. Hope. We’ve heard of it before: Desperate Man healed by holy water, the Poor Woman who divined the jackpot, an Innocent Child passing through fire. Survivors – like us – clinging to unlikely rafts. Proof enough.


    And we know the probability of pregnancy, the rate of collisions, the chance of snow.

    But individual actions – and consequences? Whether that man will use his fist again, or this mother will decide to leave before the snowstorm; whether another man, distracted by his cell-phone while he drives, will glance away as a sudden greyness engulfs the sun; whether this boy
 â€“ my boy – on his bicycle, blinded by shards of ice, meeting that car on the hill, will swerve and fall.
    We do not even know whether the simple actions we take day after day will lead to: sustenance, a smile, a memory. How can we bear, at each instant of our lives, to face the outrageous proliferation of possibilities? The subsequent collapse into the actual?
    I plant this oak tree, but I do not know who will see it grow. Will my boy return? Will I? Who will nurture this tree? Remember it? Two, four... six, seven, eight. I can count the branches. Feel the weight of the roots. But how many leaves, how many years, are furled inside?
    My nails gouge this hard earth. I can toss away black fistfuls of history: decayed roses, buried pets, boot heels, tea leaves – the matter remaining after form and function have departed. I can give reasons why this sapling is standing here: because of bark and soil, because of encroaching winter, because of the tree nursery, my mother, my job, this street, the radial force of gravity... and my child. But as it stands, thin and leafless on this hill, as this purple November evening, caught in a street of picture windows, fades into the blue flickers of local news, all we really know – all we will ever know is: today, a boy, this first snowfall, an accident.


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