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Bread and Chocolate & Marrying into the Family
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January 29, 2022
Flowers of marble, flowers of flesh
unfurl their petals in the ether
of a garden in its second millenium.
A golden child sits on the lawn,
her legs stiffly apart like a doll's,
one arm impulsively thrusting forward a rose
to the watching eye of the camera,
the next second forgetting the observer in her nose's
delicious search for nectar in the bud.
She does not need to do anything
but smile for her father;
her father is the god
of bread and chocolate.
All her had to do is snap a picture
and that day is transported to his wallet
in america with the credit cards.
How did the child come round to eating up
all his youth?
When did he fail to provide bread,
how could he forget the chocolate?
When did she start watching her own figure
and abandon the garden?
* * *
Tucked inside the fob
pocket of hills,
stop watch of human
memory.
Immersed in pine woods,
as into deep green
water,
a village like any other.
Tutto il mondo e paese
Chickens scream as a jet
cracks the eggshell
membrane of sound
All the world is a village lost
in time suspended
in space,
even a continent's
so much jetsam.
Pronto, I hear my mother cough
across the Atlantic.
* * *
The hand painted darling
in the black and white photograph
is me, acquiring the look of an antique.
I am propped up on the table,
I am a feast for your eyes.
To be beautiful at three
was not difficult,
to be blessed with hair of the soft spun honey
and eyes of lapis lazuli,
to discover a woman on the vanity shelf so soon.
This is the picture which has always dreamed
itself larger than life.
My parents display it (more than half ashamed)
like a stuffed and decapitated fawn
accidentally killed in a hunt.
* * *
The same chickens are scratching in the yard,
the same light is making tracks across the hills,
the same wind is beating its head against the stucco
walls of the houses in the village,
as evening settles into itself,
the light pulling up its seat in the valley
and tucking its legs under it.
Twenty years and my Canadian feet formed of prairie wheat
can still find their own way, can run ahead,
while my thoughts seem to resist, and find
the pomegranate, the fig, and the olive
trees of my grandmother's orchard, in the back of a house
tucked in the pocket of a hill, leaning into it
with the declining light. I stop under a pomegranate tree,
a favourite retreat, under the ripening fruit,
old dreams are pricking at the back of my mind.
I tear one open to eat and it recognizes me
with benvenuto in all its myriad, ruby eyes.
unfurl their petals in the ether
of a garden in its second millenium.
A golden child sits on the lawn,
her legs stiffly apart like a doll's,
one arm impulsively thrusting forward a rose
to the watching eye of the camera,
the next second forgetting the observer in her nose's
delicious search for nectar in the bud.
She does not need to do anything
but smile for her father;
her father is the god
of bread and chocolate.
All her had to do is snap a picture
and that day is transported to his wallet
in america with the credit cards.
How did the child come round to eating up
all his youth?
When did he fail to provide bread,
how could he forget the chocolate?
When did she start watching her own figure
and abandon the garden?
- Bread and Chocolate, pg. 7
* * *
Tucked inside the fob
pocket of hills,
stop watch of human
memory.
Immersed in pine woods,
as into deep green
water,
a village like any other.
Tutto il mondo e paese
Chickens scream as a jet
cracks the eggshell
membrane of sound
All the world is a village lost
in time suspended
in space,
even a continent's
so much jetsam.
Pronto, I hear my mother cough
across the Atlantic.
- Across the Atlantic, pg. 28
* * *
The hand painted darling
in the black and white photograph
is me, acquiring the look of an antique.
I am propped up on the table,
I am a feast for your eyes.
To be beautiful at three
was not difficult,
to be blessed with hair of the soft spun honey
and eyes of lapis lazuli,
to discover a woman on the vanity shelf so soon.
This is the picture which has always dreamed
itself larger than life.
My parents display it (more than half ashamed)
like a stuffed and decapitated fawn
accidentally killed in a hunt.
- Cara, pg. 34
* * *
The same chickens are scratching in the yard,
the same light is making tracks across the hills,
the same wind is beating its head against the stucco
walls of the houses in the village,
as evening settles into itself,
the light pulling up its seat in the valley
and tucking its legs under it.
Twenty years and my Canadian feet formed of prairie wheat
can still find their own way, can run ahead,
while my thoughts seem to resist, and find
the pomegranate, the fig, and the olive
trees of my grandmother's orchard, in the back of a house
tucked in the pocket of a hill, leaning into it
with the declining light. I stop under a pomegranate tree,
a favourite retreat, under the ripening fruit,
old dreams are pricking at the back of my mind.
I tear one open to eat and it recognizes me
with benvenuto in all its myriad, ruby eyes.
- Benvenuto, pg. 44
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