Poems Š 2012 Cynara Geissler Illustrations Š 2012 Tracy Hurren No part of this book (except small portions for review purposes) may be reproduced without written permission from Hur Publishing. Hand printed and bound in Canada with assistance from Malcolm Remple and Marie-Jade Menni. Paperback isbn 978-0-9865459-2-4 Hardcover isbn 978-0-9865459-1-7 Hur Publishing 50 Rue Faillon Est Montreal, qc h2r 1k6 hurpublishing.com
Poems by Cynara Geissler
H u r P u b l i s h i ng, MontrĂŠ a l
First Communion My mom takes my brother and me to church every Sunday Expectations of little ones are humble: the only rule is that we must not stray from the Sunday School room— During advent the garden room grows where crepe paper clouds cold—a black sheet and a Styrofoam sun blots out the sun hang in stasis and a scratchy wicker mat over a green shag carpet— is spread on the carpet an ersatz indoor garden to simulate hay where spring springs eternal Our teacher says we must prepare for the most important baby In the sanctuary parents resist and we hang David’s star on the sheet evil, and tally trespasses and ready mangers by gluing cotton balls while children are coached in egg carton compartments under painted blue skies to bend pipe cleaner rainbows On Christmas Eve and coax animals— we draw the saviour’s face two of every type on shelled peanuts we can think of— lay them in cardboard cradles out of modeling clay and present them to our parents a study in contrasts Mom places our mangers among the delicate figures in the blown glass nativity scene that rules our mantel Overnight, baby jesus goes missing When confronted, my brother confesses “I ate him. He was a peanut.” Now a large walnut from the decorative nut bowl replaces the Son of God bigger faceless impossible to crack
When my brother and I were small we were only allowed to drink out of kid cups a set of stout and sturdy plastic tumblers that wouldn’t slip or tip At our house we only had them in the dark red, and blue, and green We didn’t have any of the new neon colours that all the other kids had but we didn’t mind too much because everything you poured in our cups looked black and syrupy: a mysterious potion
Sometimes my dad would drink from the kid cups and we would try to guess what he was drinking but would always say “go away it’s just apple juice” even when there wasn’t any in the fridge One night my brother and I woke up My dad was asleep in the chair by the window Next to him on the stereo was a green kid cup and it was full My brother was excited: “I bet it’s pop!” and I dared him and he took a big gulp and he puffed up his cheeks and he threw up on my dad’s feet
For lunch the next day, We would play a game my mom made real Kraft Dinner take turns and we drank Coca-Cola Classic pouring something in tall glasses nasty like coffee or soy sauce The other person would have to guess what was in the cup. If you couldn’t guess you had to take a sip If you still didn’t know you would have to drink the WHOLE thing
Good Shepherd Every year until my 14th birthday (the year I give up the hope of belatedly bursting into some sort of smoldering beauty, stop searching the mirror for some sign that my limp ashy hair will give way to the long inky tendrils that coil around my mother’s small shoulders) I audition for the part of Mary in the Sunday School Nativity Play and am cast, instead, as a Shepherd the part with the most dreaded of lines in the rich history of liturgical monologues written to be performed by the pre- and mid-pubescent: “I am a Shepherd. I smell bad.” The part of the most beloved (and bewildered) virgin goes to Cassandra or Ginger the sort of girl who will someday wear a bra for a shirt and spend her evenings pressing herself up against a chain link fence or rolling around on some dead animal in front of a fireplace to convince you to pick up the phone I am so sure that I will make an ideal Virgin because in my 14 years on this earth it has become painfully clear that no boy will ever look at me with sex in his eyes (I make a pact with my best friend— if we both get to 90 and find ourselves untouched and alone, we will do the deed but a few weeks later he meets Sarah seductive Sarah supple Sarah slutty Sarah and I know that I am doomed).
It’s not that you are wrong for the part, my Sunday School teacher tells me, avoiding my eyes, it’s just that you are so right for the part of the Shepherd… When you have been on the outside you learn to listen for the words that are politely pushed to the corners of speech. No one wants to tell a 13-year-old that the best virgins have to wear just enough whore on their sleeves so that the aging church dads in the front row are forced to keep their hymnals in their laps, find themselves moved to reach into their wallets to top off the collection plate. When I go home after the auditions I tell my grandma that I am the Shepherd, again, because nobody wants me, will ever want me, but she shakes her head and tells me that sometimes, as a woman, it is preferable to be overlooked and underestimated that if she’d stayed on the farm in Winnipegosis she’d never have made it past the tall boys who smoked behind the barn and set fire to the hay bales with a careless flick of their fingers. She would never have walked through the city with the sun on her shoulders but would have been swallowed, like so many of her cousins down the damp dark mouths of three or more children by the time she was my age
I have had years to consider the curse of the role that Mary was not allowed to refuse imagined an aging Virgin and her still-reluctant Joseph in bed in the middle of the night her, hopeful, reaching tentatively for him in the darkness only to have him turn away, complain of a headache, let out a fake snore, the pressure of living up to the Almighty Member always too much though she has told him, every night since, that it really was Immaculate—no stains or scratches, sheets as smooth as when she made the bed that morning. At 13 I find in my grandmother’s words inchoate comfort and I lie in bed the lumps in my mattress digging into my back like sharp lengths of hay I imagine smoky breath fast fingers and go over my lines until morning.
i My mom was always leaving my father in small, stunted ways upstairs so she could fold laundry and listen to Glass Tiger inside so we could swing in the backyard without him blowing smoke in our faces at home so my grandparents wouldn’t ask her why he wasn’t at work in Winnipeg because he couldn’t promise not to swear in front of Snow White and Donald Duck like maybe if she left him out enough he might evaporate
But he just got louder thirstier more determined to take up space On sunny weekends he’d crank the radio scream and stack his empties along the front porch brown scabs on the smooth white slab of pavement or he’d sleep stone naked in the living room face pressed against the glass of the picture window bloodshot sallow sun catcher swallowing up all the light My brother and I tried to watch as uniformed men loaded him into the flashing ambulance but my mom drew the blinds and said “your dad has to go away …to get better”
ii My mom told us “now you have a decision to make…” and we had read all the Choose Your Own Adventure books we were ready when she offered “your dad can come back or we can get a kitty.”
Ludwig & Marianna they meet at the dance hall she in a dark green dress that rustles and shimmers when she moves ostrich plume perched in the perfect curl behind her earlobe he in bright plaid, lapels sharp against his collar bone cuffs pushed up to his elbow, anchored by the hard angles of his forearms she leans over, coos in his ear voice light and airy like the tips of wings ich heisse marianna und sie? and he puts a firm hand on her shoulder, traces the long line of her arm to grasp her satin fingers, and smiles dein Verlobter draws her out onto the polished wood floor where they carve rings around the other couples his strong steady frame the root that keeps her from slipping underfoot
she compliments him on the precision of his steps and he strokes the feather in her hair slides his palm in the tidy groove between her shoulder blades tells her that he is an architect that it is his civil duty to be exact and she plants kisses along his jaw lipstick petals blossoming in the open window imagining the perfect home he could build for her
Sophisticated, spirited septuagenarian seeks female companion for vigorous arguments over early dinners. Must enjoy mixed nuts and accordion music. Must always part her hair on the left wear coral lipstick and a butterfly brooch. Must deftly section out a pink grapefruit so that no pulp ever clings to the skin Must wake up at 7 am every morning and put on a purple plaid housecoat the kettle for tea a pot of water for hard-boiled eggs and the morning show on CJOB. Must start every anecdote with the phrase “I had to laugh when…” and hum “Lady of Spain” when she waters the plants Must nod in agreement when I complain about the squirrels hanging off the bird feeder in winter but scatter pecans on the snow and watch them frolic from the kitchen window when she thinks I’ve fallen asleep in front of the news. Must remind me to take my eyedrops and to plug in the car before bed. Must remind me that Chess Club is every second Saturday at 2:30 pm
why talk of love when we are panting like fluffy puppies, our shiny pink tongues hooking together
We aren’t talking about moving but I know the narrative scrolls behind your eyes slick streets and fog lamps flicker the length of your optic nerve Big plans for pretty homes and six-figure incomes flash like pennies in your pupils We inherit our parents’ dreams just like their diseases I think I want the same things: cleverly planned meals and an ocean that brings warm weather—though I hear the tall trees block out the sun and that it rains most days, but still— a chance to lose myself in rising mist have it swirl around my legs as I walk (fog innately futuristic and alien to me, supernatural smoke that pours out of spaceships, surrounds Martian invaders in middle-of-the night movies)
Here in the prairies we fall in line like the fence posts and telephone poles that stand sentinel on the highway we become rooted in repetition our lives a current that sprawls, uninterrupted into the distance open sky offering no escape from the eyes of a vengeful god Even the river is our enemy always seeping into our ruts sloshing at our ankles, deadly undertow like sticky molten taffy threatening to drag us further into the centre of our exposed selves. I could settle here but you won’t (and I would have to watch you walk away for days, as the old joke goes) but I worry that it is this city with its unbridled wind and steady pulse and river pull that keeps us together continually smashes us into each other like rare-earth magnets worry that once we step off this meridian we will be permanently knocked out of alignment
It’s cool if you never remember either of my middle names or that I loathe ketchup anywhere near my eggs I won’t take it personally if you’re hours late for our wedding ceremony or fail to pick me up after major surgery Stay for the weekend? Ain’t no thang Your bong-huffing wine-swilling plate-hurling could move into our bedroom for all I’d care
mother
just as long as when we’re together you want me the way that German pigeon wanted the Kaiser roll wedged in the tram track on that sweltering Tuesday in July 2002 so intent on drawing me out and into you that only a speeding street car could knock you sideways and even then just barely