Another man sits alone in one of the chairs
kitty-corner from me. He, too, has brought
his own book to mask the anxiety of the wait.
Somewhere removed, in a room we can not see,
doctors and nurses exchange hospital gossip
as they perform their scopies on our wives.
On TV Japanese forces are counting down
seconds before decimating America’s navy
on December […]
The taxi is parked in a bus stop space
near a pay phone booth. The driver
holds the receiver in his hand
and when we stride within easy earshot,
he cries out,“Oh, my poor wife,
my wife, ooohh…” his voice,
an exemplar of abject misery.
As we draw abreast of him,
he places the receiver back on its hook,
turns to us with hand […]
Only when the snow was five-feet deep
and icicles from rooftops
as big as your arm, and the bay frozen,
he realised he hadn’t been paid.
Like all Acadians he knew how to store.
In his larder: frozen vegetables from the garden,
a moose his son shot,
fish he caught during the summer;
lobster, crab, clams and mussels.
In the cupboard; pickles, jams and […]
