How I Joined the Seal Herd Too

                                                I learned

to let my body give                  it was not I

who controlled the rocks

                                                  Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011)

for an instant                        I thought

of the difference between        air and

without thinking             her flipper

buoyed me                         out of

gender and the institution        was

what                         I forgot

ankle turned       into the fin

I always wanted    to know

something other         than air

float      belly-centered in love

and it was not difficult         this

landlessness                        at the pivot

of our dance                        what matters

what touches      in what language

when the others join                         too

the curbs and spiral stairways

will all dissolve into       swirls

of joy and         breaches

and when I spun          surprised

in the blue-grey     to look

surprised            at her eyes               she

even more   surprised  was

there too       really          really           

the waters were       words mostly

verbs of being       ecstatic     and            

I did not miss                        my groin

at all               sleek we swam         away

iceflows and schools of             ideas

art and movement       through liquid

ease she teases and          swims better

than I ever                        dreamed

another state of         being

intimate with        oneself            water

a wet embrace of care                        full

of promise         loveswirl

and swerve      you            sped

ahead and             I                learning

floundered after       eyes

finding new    colours the shape

of your longing           receding

a moment of doubt         would

you leave        adrift      I wonder

how would I find land again     but

by body knows now      it will not

turn back      arched   

dives                           deeper

where currents meet         and fishes

are rich            we reached       fins skyward

stretching the surface of the

possible           beach pebbles against

skin a sound of                  release

the a waffling wake of        

past lives            land-bound slow

walkers and linear      thinking

maybe you and I        maybe

water riffled around         our discourse

of love bubbling with the             future

my sore ears disappeared      overused

to the inane blathering of news

your paper fell apart        paint ran

books disintegrated into soggy messes of intention

clothes dissolved into            sensation

our house became the many

horizons        became a progress toward

on nervousness 2

whining at the door of

ridiculous requests

hoping that the rash

is not related

stuttering on an explanation

with no question

blabbering on about

herbs and balloons

the century that can

shatter the human myth

the man leaned out the driver

window with his bad teeth

all the reasons are piled

against the wall of the artery i keep forgetting the name of but it is an important one and in real life not at all the neat shape you see on hallmark cards and if i gush will i come clean will the toxins spill out into the river and kill fish eggs aorta it’s the aorta i am thinking of and it constricts when i say i love you but is it the climate my aging cells or true

writing and deleting the same

message 44 times

writing a message and sending

it but before you where were ready

chest pains are a sign hung

on the door saying ‘i am still here’

The Acoustic North

The word “scenic” stuck in the back of your throat
as you trample the mycelium. The word “wilderness”
as the multiple slime moulds cleanse the spill. The
word “refuge” as the word “recreation” is nailed up
beside the highway. The word “cut” as TFL tenures
cease. The word “resource” as the job ad for customer
relations is posted. The word “plastic” blasts through
exterior of everything. The word “tree” caught in traffic
at Robson and Granville. The word “contour” as a
measure of where you are standing, askance, watching
the subtle movements of a place, its inhabitants, the
busy living that is not you and catching the wave. The
words “joint review panel” sets the stage and lighting and
charges admission at the door and chats over drinks at the
hotel bar, tips big.  The word “compassion” sidles up the
scree slope hoping to the catch the human world by surprise.
The word “road” stretches you from the word “here” to the
word “if” and in between the gravel base rolled tight under
asphalt is a desert. The word “Ahbau” from China—a lake,
a street—and the movement between.  The word that drifts
downstream in the spring, charging the vegetable matter and
spurring the heat coming from the south face of a civilization.
The word “progress” squats at the side of the road too lost to
hitch, too broke to imagine, too tired to wish anyone ill. The
word tugs at the sleeve of the uninitiated, saunters into the
reading like an outsider, dumps her packsack in the corner,
turns to you, asks a question about water. The word 
“bedsprings” dumped in the creekbed and taking on moss. 
Whatever stands in place of something else, a metaphor for 
actual contact, laid overtop or sketched in chalk on the 
sidewalk. The word “echo” choosing to return angles 
etched from machines, windfall, lecterns, and corporate 
manifesto. The word “north” carries you back to camp, 
puts an herbal balm on the wound, tries to explain where 
you went wrong.

What the Men Said

divisions take on the character of said

conflict, sliding into the role as if

to say, ‘here I am

apart’ or something larger

the grandfather would say it

in silence and a swift

whack of power comes

with no context

the men stood around

bereft and swinging for

the fences—fame I suppose,

some sort of immortality

caught up in the sting of

knowing the pain could be lost could

be healed                under

here the men said the getting

was good and everything was

freedom which means pain

inflicted quietly, in domesticated ways

means seven of the eight readers

were men and the one woman was

coined in brass and strung out

here the men are libertine, which means

ancient and schooled in the ways of

creeping posts and grooming the style,

the candor of oppression

here the men said nothing has happened

and will never

ungulate blood

the map was inconclusive and where

we were was a matter of

conversation, gesture, weather

the mother was looking not

for us but for shelter from

our knowing

anything

the books were still

the dull red spots in the snow

are not a cipher but the first

thing that a new world would know 

Poem Changes Her State

the gist of the line or a palette

filled with culture, plastic and

the casual violence of progress

and she teases out of the everyday

daylight sparkles of irony or

a watery chop of sarcasm washing

all those states of being entangled with

patriarchy, its formulated use

of her, her skills, hands across

her mouth, hardly making a

mark, but a thieving all

the things she’d wishes into being

hers, art, justice, the wild

grins of kids by the cleaned-up

pond, standing tall, unprecedented

contact across the impossible

would mean a new paradigm for

touch, lightlight, there and safe