ham
rather than beach gear, which only affirmed
the Spanish maxim: You always end up
eating the Iberian ham you love.
Blackberry
Eventually, my critique was refined to
‘I hope all you sickening snobs just die.’
I ate blackberries every morning (once)
and held on to my earned, mature insight.
What people generally liked about me
was the thought they could do my job.
The quality my closest friends loved most
was that I was ‘a generous tipper.’
I read on some site blackberries were good
for the lungs. I knew they tasted really weird.
Fruits that taste good have soda pops based on them.
Isn’t that right, Diet Sierra Mist Kiwi?
Did I mention all the blackberry smoothies
and drinking them in one gulp, imagining
I was steadying myself on Jesus’s shoulder?
Jesus, of course, would just have Diet Sprite.
Canola Flowers
If you tore off the tops of canola –
yellow canola flowers – would you
jump in a tub of canola margarine
just to make the best of despair?
Do you miss those bed-bound Sundays we had?
You’d read classic American novels
and when it was Henry James you would scream
at the heroine, ‘Oh, just bend over!’
Into the acacia you go, scowl mouth.
Into the acacia with you, whatever
Jonathan Franzen novel with the girl
who chews the cuffs of her new blue blouse.
Like heartfelt, canola is a made-up word.
It brings together Canada and oil.
It’s a tub of fun you’ll be glad to call
I Can’t Believe It’s Not More Meaningful.
Columbines
In the kingdom Plantae, in the ‘You stink,
Ophelia’ class, four of five columbines
mark the spot where I finally decided
to increase my social media profile.
O, Annie Facebook, Clarissa Twitter -
we’re going to the prom! I shed real tears
just because my poem for Beyoncé
was rejected by the Malahat Review.
Could the columbines be mashed into scent,
giving me a resilient mountain freshness?
The answer, after that long flight to Paris,
was a resounding absolutement pas.
Still, I knew I was going to pluck and pluck,
and I plucked until plucking became my life,
well beyond any interest in sowing
and its much-funner cousin reaping.
Tulips
Corduroy once ruled the kingdom of pants.
I was still writing poetry back then.
Or, whatever it was I did back then
that made people say, ‘That’s not poetry!’
The tulips my father planted back home
bloomed steady most Easter-times, sure as
the plans I sketched out to start feeling good
got crumpled alongside a map to Rome.
Casting ‘foul light upon neighbouring ponds’
was not my cup of Sprite, but I enjoyed
choking with anxiety whenever
the seasons made a definitive change.
Fall was all university khakis
and old Nantuckets braying, ‘Hey, Corduroy!
Your footgame burger garbage is garbage!’
until it was finally footgame season.
Nasturtium
I took careful notes on the nasturtiums,
ticking off each one I saw. Over the year –
year and a half? – I saw near six hundred.
The best and dumbest thing I ever did.
As long as it rains, nasturtiums will grow
and the cycle of life, from grassy spore
to Mars Incorporated’s decision
to make pina colada M&Ms, will go on.
Oh, through it all, nose after heady nose,
racking up scores, I started to lose heart;
it sounds fancy and fragrant, when, really,
I couldn’t be bothered with instant soup.
Bring primrose like tomato soup
and jasmine like a fresh oyster chowder;
O daffodilly-coloured chicken noodle,
O nasturtium with cloved pumpkin flower.
Johnson’s Blue Geranium
As late I returned to that corner café,
so
