A day behind, ahead of us the West
on the line of the wing.
High clouds create the speed
of chasing sunsets,
and I try to stay awake until mine comes.
Where am I up to?
This: what does Claire think?
No, this: what does she think when she's alone?
A visitor here, I know, dropped in
from one page before in my journal,
and suddenly travelling in the wrong day,
like the flight Toronto to LA.
What can I say about her
when I'm too tired to write prose -
my legs ache from sitting so long,
and prose is a walking game -
if I look for her in a poem? Just notes?
C'mon Claire, let me hear your voice,
not the distant one I make up,
but the one when you don't know I'm listening.
'What do you think?' I asked at 9:05am,
when I got into the car at Cape Breton.
The first morning of rain all week,
but the man loading the car next to mine,
said, 'It'll clear after lunch.'
Last night, three Irish reds and a scotch,
on my own, next to an open fire,
and ladies talking about vegetable gardens,
and their concert at eight,
and how they'd make it after they ate.
I felt drunk before I should, and decided her thoughts could wait.
For what, though. Sun? After lunch it cleared, and I cleared Cape Breton,
and wanted to go into Halifax again,
because I knew that city straight away.
Maybe that was where to find out,
bump into Claire and ask,
What are you thoughts, dear?
Halifax waits for next time,
the day we anticipate as a fairness to good impressions,
and Halifax to Toronto I discovered where
Churchill, Thunder Bay, Goose Bay, and Gander lie on the world map,
but not in which town she hid them,
the words she promised, character to author.
Maybe they are on that red line
that should be getting weaker
but still shapes the sky.
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| Nova Scotia (October 2013) |
