We ate strawberries and cream from
tooth-bright porcelain dishes
so white
I didn’t notice
the broken pieces.
The blood dropped,
clotted cold in the cream
and I went hot,
white, afraid I might vomit.
I showed the waitress my bloody tongue,
she brought a cool damp cloth.
You carried on eating.
~ Ernestine Lahey
Ernestine Lahey is a Nova Scotian now living in the Netherlands where she teaches […]
Here, black spruce crouch low.
Dogwood berries mildly noxious
here, nipped by jay, and kinglet.
Sundews pucker,
bodies agape for bees.
Sphagnum mosses loosing spores
to nest in nicked skin, scratches.
Pine cones bursting underfoot,
and the gray underthings
of the backward turning leaves.
A perspex sign extrapolates
felix lynx’s inborn traits, our own.
My husband wonders
if moose climb trees.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Ontario,
a senior civil servant
untwists his […]
So ivy’s scaling walls.
But what if your name was Ivy
and I was as stiff and solid
as a wall?
And dinner’s sizzling in the pan.
But if you were the night’s meal,
would I be the pan,
the hot stove,
or just the cold plate on the sideboard
waiting to accommodate your cooking.
And it’s the month of May
and if your name was […]
Here, at the tip of this finger,
is the end of me,
mildly flirting with the ripples
of the duck pond,
wondering if that old otter
will poke out of the waters
and nip that wayward digit
or will he realize
that that’s where I leave off,
that I’m no threat
and there is no more of me
beyond the point
of my unconscious dallying.
As a definition […]
Small shovel in one hand,
crackling black container
in the other, I walk down
to the garden
to plant leeks.
Slender green stems
need to be separated
roots spread out
in stronger soil, whipped
by harsher winds.
Cradling them gently, I feel the softness
of the pointed spears
between my fingers, still vulnerable
bending easily.
Tousled white roots teased out
I slip them,
one by one
into their earthy trough,
sprinkle between them
-blessing? […]
