February Highlights

Back to School

Quality Time

Kasey Chambers at The Zoo

This one's for you

This is for the love forlorn and the love homesick
For the love afflicted and the love addicted
The love ambiguous and the love confused

This is for the one who was loved and left
And for the leaver and for the ones who saw it coming
And said it or didn’t say
This is for the love losers and the love lost

This is for the love-in-a-mist and the love-lies-bleeding
And for the love-in-the-afternoon
And the love-on-a-bicycle
And the love-between-two-slices-of-bread

This is for the love blind the love deaf
The love wounded and the love dead
This is for the ones who turned off the machine
This is for the ones who called it

This is for the love heroes the love battlers the love survivors
This is for the victims the love scarred
This is for their children who will grow up
And love

This is for the love cooks and the love sweepers
The love makers and the love sleepers
The love bankers and the love spenders
For stay at home lovers and for working love

This is for the ones who updated their status
Who rewrote their bios
Who pictured themselves in someone else’s profile

This is for the love simple the love basic
This is for what I did for love and all the things I didn’t do

This is for you

First Day, New School

1. Una, Grade One
You are stalky arms and legs
And a stiff green dress.
You are a backpack
And a broad rimmed hat.
You are eyes peering out
From under the rim.
You are a cubby hole
With your name on it.
You are your lunchbox.
You are the new girl on the mat
Sitting closest to the teacher.

I am goodbye.

2. Fred, Grade Three
You bounce
on the balls
of your feet.

Your worried smile
shows a gap.

You ask me not
to kiss you goodbye.

But your hand gives
the secret signal:
two quick pulses.
A single heartbeat

to tell me you love me
that right now
you need to be loved.

3.
Two girls vanish into a world
made for them. I swim
through a sea of parents,
strangers,
into the quiet of the deserted playground
looking for my husband's face.

Circus Girl

Yesterday Martin went back to work and I didn't write a poem. I took the girls shopping for school shoes and to have their haircut. The girl waved her scissors somewhere near Frederique's head and charged me $22. She was, admittedly, an excellent comber though. Fred almost cried because the only Mary Janes in her size had a buckle. The shoe shop girl was brisk, firm, and on my side, unlike the hairdresser. In the end Fred opted for clompy shoes with velcro fastenings. Una tried on every pair in her size, walked around very thoughtfully in each and settled on very fancy brown t-bars. I gave them all the moneys and then I went home.

At home I lost the baby twice. In fairness to myself, once before we went out, and once after - and by then I was a whole new person. The first time the front door (with a dicky latch) had swung open and he had quietly taken himself up to visit the chickens. Fred, Una and I ran madly around the house inside and outside. My heart pounded. I was so relieved when he showed up. They were a long two minutes. The second time, Fred found him almost straight away. He'd climbed up the steep ladder and got himself on the trampoline. For a baby who's not really walking yet (15 steps is his record to date), he sure can move. We are all on high alert. Also yesterday Avery, who is a veritable strap houdini, fell out of the high chair onto his head. It wasn't a great parenting day. Today he did this boneless thing in the supermarket and managed to stand up in the pram totally self-liberated, despite a firm five point harness. I remember there was a girl who went to my high school who was a skilled contortionist. She would perform sometimes at school concerts. It was sort of like that.

Where is she now, that contortionist girl? What bleak-hearted circus did she join? I can't remember her name, but I can clearly visualise the bendiness of her body, and the sharp angular face. Angela? Andrea? If we ever speak of her again, let's call her circus girl.

Every day of January, this is the sort of thinking that went on in my head just before I wrote a poem. I miss it.