Your Absence Forms a Shape in the Air

            During song practice on Thursday morning my denture didn’t feel as loose, though I made sure by pushing it into place after every song. I felt pretty strong while singing even though I was weak when I got up. This was the last day of my fourteen-day fast.

            In the afternoon I took a siesta and though I hardly fell asleep at all it was enough time to dream that I was working for this young plain-clothes executive type who was pretty casual. We were driving to his place in his white van to do the job he wanted help with. Driving through the alley he saw his wife just coming home from shopping. She was lifting a load up the back of their home with an open elevator with an undisclosed mechanism and so the lift looked basically like just a platform. She had a wagon with a large green bag in it and he waved to her and she waved back but turned away and then he saw the wagon starting to roll off the platform when she was already almost up to the second floor so he shouted to her and she grabbed it just in time. I looked heavy and I thought that it might pull her over the edge but she managed with a lot of effort to pull it back. She was a redhead with short hair and neither slim nor large just slightly larger boned than average. She was wearing a red top and a green skirt but more dark tones of those colours. He seemed to own a large section of the block because we started working on another property a few doors away. I was on a lower balcony and he was standing in the alley. He wanted me to fill up a canister with water. The green hose was hooked in a curve along a wall behind me but the container was over the railing towards him. I climbed over the railing to get the yellow plastic container with the spout and we had a conversation about me climbing over things rather than walking around them. We were next inside of a large empty room where we were about to work and he commented without complaint about how casual we were being in our professional relationship when I’m really supposed to call him “mister”. I was about to respond when I woke up. I spent less than an hour in bed.

                I finished my last poem for the final project in my Canadian Poetry course. This one was inspired by Susan Musgrave’s style. She usually has a strong image in every line so I tried to spice it up as mush as I was able within the short time I have left until the deadline:

In those times when your absence forms

a shape in the air in front of me

that I could almost throw my arms around

and embrace instead of you, I wish you were here.

I seem to know exactly what

to do with that ephemeral matrix -

my molten imagination

is poured into its mould – with no mysteries

to confuse me. But I wish you were here

even without being food or sweet

suffocation. Even when sitting near

I want you here instead. I like the way you laugh

at my jokes and I like the way you speak

your thoughts. I wish I could hold you all night long

and talk with you but then I would start

going down on you as my daughter

suddenly began shouting at the window

for me to come down and open

the door and then I’d groan oh no

as I got up to put my pants on

and then you’d comment how

we were stupid to bother to try

to make love since we knew she’d arrive

soon. Then I’d let my daughter in and you’d

stay for a polite few minutes

before going home. You would worry me

with your sullen mood the next day on the phone

repeating what a waste of time

trying to have sex had been and then you’d leave

for Calgary and so I wouldn’t see you again

for a week. When you returned your mood would be back

to normal and we’d talk and laugh until you realized

that you were late and you’d say goodbye.

Starting that week I’d agree to set aside

more time for repairing us. I’d call

you every night instead of watching Northern

Exposure and I wouldn’t threaten to go

when I’m at your place and you’re mad and you want to sleep

apart from me. I wouldn’t bring up

those things that don’t fit in your listening. I would

agree not to drink so much that it interrupted

the flow between us. I would look you straight in the eyes

and refrain from hording my heart in the distance

where I either sulk or embrace daydreams instead of you.

Then you would agree to shut down

the distances you practice and call me

more often. You would stop aborting

and amputating our ends

of the week by driving me

home when we’ve hit a roadblock

or instead of returning me

to sender, going to sleep

in your bed alone, or you’d threaten to break up.

I don’t like it when you torture me

by saying that I hurt you on purpose,

when you claim that you know me better

than I know myself and so you understand

my motives and you will teach me

how wrong I am if I will only listen

when you tell me that we’ll never live

together. I hate it when you tell me to grow up

when I’m crying from something you’ve said.

I feel run down when you give me a cold

vagina. I think that it’s vicious for you

to say that I’m evil, to say that you aren’t

confident in me. When you don’t come

on to me it makes me feel unloved. Your anger

feels a lot like my father, your complaints

about my clothing and my housekeeping mess

up the calm of our romance. When you berate

me by declaring that I’m not perceptive, it grates

on my cool. But I do tend to crash-land on a heavenly body

that is flighty, incontinent, inhumane, self

serving, adversarial and boiling,

who floods me with frustration because she does not

fathom that I mean no damage with my irons

in the fire. I hunger for you

to always come on strong, ungoverned but downright

neighbourly so that I can have armistice of mind. When I do not

have these desiderata I get the picture

that my I has been blackened so I boomerang by eating

my heart out, getting in your face, shooting off my mouth and tuning

into my nethermost worry, which is that, I am good

for nothing and left out in the cold.