Roe Candace de Taeye
PS Guelph 2015
Published by PS Guelph, one point in the Publication Studio constellation. PS Guelph 46 Essex Street Guelph, ON N1H 3K8 © 2015 Candace de Taeye ISBN: 978-0-9920366-9-0 Book Layout by Steph Yates. PS Guelph’s Editorial Gang: Dan Evans, Danica Evering, Alissa FirthEagland, Nicole Neufeld, Rachel Wallace, Steph Yates. psguelph@publicationstudio.biz www.publicationstudio.biz
To Roenigk & Jasper
CONTENTS 1 Natal River Maki / 10 Natal River / 11 Sectionate / 13 Estuary / 14 Larva / 15 EnsĹ? / 16 Salmon Ladder / 17 Kype / 18 Embryoyo / 19 Preferred / 20 Magicicada / 21 Cuttlefish & Wrasses / 22 Conversions / 23
2 Year of the Horse Year of the Horse / 27 Machhapuchchhre / 29 Fluid / 30 Walled City of Fur and Syrup / 31 Raunak / 32 The Midwife / 33 Viviparous / 35
Capricious / 36 Somnus was a Racehorse / 37 Gravid Sushi / 38 Naming / 39 Gestation / 40 Indelible / 42
3 Matrotrophy Matrotrophy / 45 Stew Empathy / 46 Happy People - A Year in the Ice Storm / 47 Naming ii / 48 Velveteen / 49 Asleep / 50 Scalp Scent / 51 Significant Other / 52 Matrotrophy ii / 53 Roenigk Classification of Hepatotoxicity / 54 Date of Confinement / 55 Indelible ii / 56 Past Tense / 57 Matrotrophy iii / 58
NOTES / 60 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS / 62
1
Natal River
“Row, row, row your boat -Fish out of water.”
-Your father on the night I went into labour
Maki Salmon flesh laid upon the rice, then bound up tightly becomes maki. Arms and the top corner folded down, one side tucked in The midwife demonstrates an effective swaddle. Regularly binding their breasts flat, growing stubble my sister becomes your uncle.
10
Natal River Roenigk Drive. Your namesake a side road running along a creek. In the early autumn on your birthday the salmon return. Finding their birthplace by olfactory cues lead the newborn instinctually, homing in on its mothers nipple. An innate swim reflex and mammalian diving response will soon fade.
11
Not the 2000 yellow rubber ducks. Poured over the bridge. Floating “gently down the stream.�
12
Sectionate Hugging the fish to my chest, little orange eggs pepper the edge of the bank. Poured out when I cut her open and dressed her. The body is a capacity. I sat myself on the edge of the operating table. Attachment to the process is unproductive. They cut you a new route. Hands delivered you over the dam of a blue curtain erected on my chest. That night you slept in a clear plastic fishbowl beside the hospital bed. I’m supposed to be angry about the intervention. The potential to have been a semelparous animal.
13
Estuary Brackish somewhere between salt and fresh. A transitory place for acclimatization varies over space and tide. Salmon can pass for both. Anadromous/ Androgynous Enviable. Not conforming but combining they move between. Reflected in the behaviour of associated words. A third neuter gender exists for some nouns in languages other than this one. Homing or straying from one’s natal river depends on olfactory memory.
14
Larva Grava, para, larva. Your first costume is not a man-suit or a god-suit, but a grub-suit. My little periodical cicada swaddled. 13 or 17 years until maturity. Final molt a mystery. How much control do any of us have over our puberty? Resilience over purity. When does the larva become aware of their body’s capacity?
15
Ensō A circle in a single brushstroke. Holding too tightly to the process or the outcome is useless. The minnow swims a constant circle inside the plastic mug. Toted home from the pond Jess nearly drowned in. The little fish will die soon and be tossed over the balcony. “Well that’s the circle of life I guess….” -Your Opa, dying a few months before you were born.
16
Salmon ladder Hugging you fresh to my chest in a little orange hat. Standing at the riverbank. Your presence changed the ergonomics of lifting. The dam has been there a while, but the salmon remember an upstream before it. They remember further back than that. Before the ladder men helped deliver the salmon. They intervened / They assisted the ones that failed to progress. Over the dam made insurmountable. built by a good year. Making endless black rubber circles since cars replaced horses. They just keep smashing themselves into the concrete. Spending that frenetic energy.
17
Kype The jawline changes develops canines and a hook. They’re becoming sexually dimorphic. The jawline changes develops facial hair. They start speaking in new pronouns. When they transition they’ll lose their camouflage bars. Spend a year hanging out post-smolt.
18
Embryoyo Atlantic salmon hearts respond to electromagnetic fields, leading them home from the ocean. Dean Young grows poems with someone else’s heart in his chest. Your heart was too slow in the pit of my gut. So they cut you a new route. I make a habit of feeding you everything aloud ‘Embryoyo’ ‘Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals’ ‘Joy is So Exhausting’
19
Preferred We remember the upstream of our childhood. Jess and I, ‘tomboys’ wearing our cicadas on our sleeves cleaning fish jumping off the roof. I returned found reception. He preferred a different body of water. Actually he prefers the singular pronoun they are still my essential sibling. they were one of the first to welcome you home.
20
Magicicada Woman, woman, elaborate cicada. A final molt and she becomes a mother. Body newly soft. My sibling is still breaking open their exoskeleton. We leave behind shells of smaller selves. Males sing until they find reception. Then the little larva latches drinks the family tree sap.
21
Cuttlefish & Wrasses The mourning cuttlefish exhibits splitdown-the-middle camouflage. Appearing as males to their prospective mates and females to rival on-lookers. Family always the last to know. Sequential changes on birth certificates are at some point necessary to reach maturity. Protogyny : when those we assumed female start happily functioning as male. Based on internal triggers: mispackage. Common in fish, gastropods, plants, and occasionally siblings.
22
Conversions egg/roe/Jessica/egg/Smith larva/alevin/Jess/zygote/de Taeye pupa/fry/blastocyst cicada/parr/embryo smolt/Jas/fetus salmon/ Jasper/newborn/mom
23
2
Year of the Horse
The Year of the Horse According to the Chinese astrological calendar the year of the horse was set to begin January 31, 2014. For me it began in October, in Tokyo, months ahead of schedule. Chewing the umami out of horse sashimi. Or perhaps three weeks prior, mountain-side in Nepal. A white horse poking its head inside the guesthouse door. Then I travelled home for reunion sex. Gathered up your surname. The ghost in the house wore blue shoes, dropped dimes, left you a middle name. Your first name was already predetermined. A street name. A starting line.
27
You were born, unusually long limbed and lean. Foal like. One year later.
28
Machhapuchchhre Fishtail mountain as seen from Annapurna Base Camp. Get up every hour to breathe. Get up every hour to pee. Just to see the radiant sunrise light. Pregnancy dreams are startlingly similar to altitude dreams on the mountain that used to be too sacred to be touched by women. My guide has walked up this mountain dozens of times. One morning we talk sex and gender over kefir and biscuits. Pause whenever men pass by.
29
Fluid Urinalysis easily read by eye. Endocrine placeholder contraceptive. Medicated racehorses often suffer catastrophic breakdowns launching petite cisgendered jockeys. Relating to, or denoting glands that secrete hormones directly into the blood. Our better selves test-strips for alcohol levels in breast milk. To pass. So many years of tiny pills, then suddenly a plus sign soaked in piss. Their second puberty and menopause at once. The beard syrup so viscous in the needle.
30
The Walled City of Fur & Syrup The stone wall around the city outlived its masons. This is how men birth the future. A wall is a dam is a mucus plug. The week you developed tastebuds inside the wall. The lox, the unpasteurized, the decadent and the strong caffeine that said succumb on the mug. I wasn’t trying to kill you. I never did. One’s increased acuity of smell elevates consumption. Read: Everything is substantially more fucking delicious. Made the cheese taste a little more of goat.
31
Raunak Ronaq/Ronak/Rounak/Raunak/RÝnak/Ronnick/Roenick/Roenigk A name a street your name. A street named after someone else. You’re named after there not them. A radiant or splendid sunrise light. Maybe even a hockey player a Pennsylvanian bus company or a scale of liver damage done by the drug methotrexate. A celebration pride and glory. Irish, Kurdish, Hindu or Bengali.
32
The Midwife She’s the long-fingered gatekeeper. She’s a stretcher and a cervix-sweeper. She’s a product of missionary parents and Hokkaido. She’s a dairy goat-keeper, their raw milk drinker. She’s a distraction of molasses and oats for them. And she’s been displaced to the corner of the room by interventions. And she’s watching your father retching outside the OR.
She’s establishing a proper latch, fetching the placenta.
33
She’s heading home for another late dinner, will check in again tomorrow.
34
Viviparous Why does the poetry of women always have to be poetry of the body? Wanting in / wanting out of them. Vessels turning out vestiges. Russian dolls or aphids. Asexual and viviparous reproduction. Rarely a male in sight until autumn leaves change the salmon reds, oranges and pink. The dying pageantry or rose overpopulation, leads to the production of new genitals and wings. Protein intensive tasks, and so they begin to lay eggs instead.
35
Capricious Packing taped flat and painted on nipples. Rug hooked some chest hair. Looked faun. Put on my goat pants one hoof at a time like anyone else. Of course they refused to kiss me now goateed. This one time at band camp I had a pan flute, got bacchanal drunk, threw up the rum and oatmeal cookies everywhere. Passed out, curled up in the corner at the sculptor’s house.
36
Somnus was a Racehorse Many of whom end up as paardenvlees is a good source of iron. Your Oma suggested. Your Oma ate while pregnant with your father. Later, a dark beer to help the milk come in. I do. Resilience over purity despite vegans or a pet rabbit: Konijnvlees. Later still immersion blending meats to puree sieve and store. All variations of grey except the salmon stays pink. Somnus was the Roman god of sleep. You, milk-drunk asleep on my lap.
37
Gravid Sushi Sake - Docosahexaenoic acid Ikura - a salty popping between the teeth Basashi - plated thoroughbred
- sincerely the very obviously pregnant woman. -sincerely your mother.
38
Naming 18 characters maximum. Thoroughbred names must not include poor taste, previous winners, the tracks. Be of commercial significance fresh or canned Chinook, Coho, Chum. Must not be the name of an actual person unless they give written permission. The doctor giving written permission to change it- pronoun. The only name he chose to keep as a man is his maiden name. Which was the only name of mine I changed.
39
Gestation Point zero, the same morning of the ultrasound morning of the CT scan. You turn out to be viable, your Opa, not. He and I calling out parallel cravings from the see-saw couch. Until his esophagus becomes a sieve. I squirrel away all the lost plump from his cheeks under my shirt. Your father, his son, assembles the bassinet and the hospital bed in one day. You kick so the outside world can feel it. Your Opa stops going outside at all. Our rapidly growing bellies start pushing our diaphragms up forcing hearts and lungs out of the way.
40
It ends with the closest thing to him hugging you. Holding him up against my belly against you searching for a pulse.
41
Indelible Skin is rarely flawless, never a notebook. No hesitation to imperfect it with ink. A whole flank indelible. tomorrow I’ll add a simple loop a brushstroke recreated a thousand pinholes. a refreshing. Inside it your name sounds the samelooks unrecognizable. Your name the petroglyphs
just below of seawolves.
From when your father and I eloped, or when I swam with the humpback off the opposite coast, or the two previous embryos that died the size of fry.
42
3
Matrotrophy
Matrotrophy My placenta or was it yours? Saved, dried, powdered into capsules. To stave off depression, restore iron, hormones, or self. Sure it’s cannibalism in a sense, but all the other mammals were doing it. Ouroborous is the snake that eats itself. Coincidently roe makes the best salmon bait.
45
Stew Empathy Crying while attempting to section it. Little arms reaching up. Dressed in the skinless sense. The same heft, length, and colour as you. Newborn a few feet away. I’d made rabbit stew a dozen times before.
The partially eaten bodies fertilize the riparian forest.
46
Happy People - A Year in the Ice Storm The dam veiled in frozen membranes tangible memories of winters. Some more clearly discernible than others. There were so many layers last December. Trees bent into snare traps or snapped. The powerlines tore, transformers burst into green aurorae. I worked long into the mornings while your father and dogs kept the bed warm. I thought I was just tired, not two jumped through a hole in the ice because that’s how one should start a new year. The first night home with you we watched that Herzog documentary. Where Russian trappers only cry when their dogs die too soon. Made out of the taiga themselves.
47
Naming ii Jasper, Alberta, was really Banff he lived in for a season. An opaque microcrystalline stone he gave me as gift years before. Edward in case you want to assume a common name. A dead friend with uncommonly hued shoes. Sandwiched between surname and given. Rudy was your Opa. Also a ridgeback our second dog. Your Oma cringes whenever we call him now.
48
Velveteen Our previous children becoming velveteen rabbits, seams loosening. In my mind Werner Herzog narrates “If you go out in the woods today…” As I stuff you into a plush bear-suit. “You’re sure of a big surprise.” Both dogs stop, backs unzipping while a half dozen jackrabbits or maybe seawolf spirits dash out. The rest drains away in little rivulets of familiarity. Leaving me behind, crying over a pair of worn out dog costumes. “You’d better go in disguise”
49
Asleep As children siblings, we played wolves never mothers. This long before they learned to howl or talk. A redd is the nest A riffle is the shallow length of turbulent stream. The pond had neither. Mom fished Jess out once I woke her up. I dreamt of them drowning, being kidnapped, being trapped, being lost every night for years. I’ll dream of you every night for years.
50
Scalp Scent They request a sniff of your nape in my arms. Womb–aching stranger women their eyes lolling back. It’s intoxicating like home like me but better. It’s like butter or a lover but purer. As you dream your mouth makes little fish lip motions. Except my mother lost her sense of smell. Severed by rubber or the surgeries it caused. Severed the olfactory cues to forgotten memories.
She doesn’t eat fish since she worked in the smelt processing plant.
51
Significant Other No kype or hump, but he changed too. His heart responds more than most.
Normally the female salmon builds the redd of gravel, but he lays stones for a living. Wishes he could have been a seahorse. A son to fatherless to father of a son in one season.
His face made brackish, the first one to hold you while I was filleted. I hope he gave you his empathy when we divided ourselves into you.
You and him, sitting in the tub among the rubber ducks.
52
Matrotrophy ii It’s an ache on the chest and a leaking. A whole new empathy nesting you in this impossibly soft dough. Kneaded by your knees inside. Shrinking back as you eat me up.
53
Roenigk Classification of Hepatotoxicity Their bodies represent a transfer of nutrients from the ocean. Their bodies represent a transfer of pollutants from the ocean.
It’s all about a proper latch. Oral Fixation. Orthorexia Nervosa: a term for a fixation on proper eating. Breastfeeding as righteous purity. Imagine a closed system, wholesome. Fat soluble vitamins and pesticides. We’re a lifetime of residues. I’m a sponge being wrung into milk, right into your mouth.
54
Date of Confinement :expected due date, You were born
two weeks late.
Pens of livestock now salmon. Expecting to make it home to die. Your Opa got his wish, a little after two weeks spent in hospital. You father sleeping on the same fold-out cots then as when you were born. In hospital. We had expected you’d be born at home.
55
Indelible ii Bodies accumulate traces notched with memories. You were born uncommonly marked. A nevus sebaceous cheek kissed puberty will change that too. The doctor advised us to barter it for a scar. A ‘bikini line’ where they removed you. Scar, the only evidence of Jaspers fleshy tail and one day their breasts. They anointed me with a dash above the lip. To better remember Grandma or her brass cane. We, three, share café au lait spots, not surprising since I’m always spilling something on you.
56
Past Tense That will be the hardest part for me. I’ll trip over his past tense for years. 25 years spent cast as a sister in our narratives. Stories told unchanged and often for two decades. To want new pronouns. Tiny words read as XY, they or brother. He thinks maybe I’m torn. It’s just habit, not a lack of support. It’s easier for friends having shorter scripts to relearn. Joyous exhaustion and righteous anger we both made it over the dam. Spent that frenetic energy smashed up against and over our concrete. 57
Matrotrophy iii I thought maybe I could write with all this new red-pink self peeking through the stretchmarks. But all I produce is milk. Warm, sleep inducing milk. Get up every hour to feed. Get up every hour to pee.
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.�
58
NOTES Alevin- stage of baby salmon. Anadromous- can live in salt or fresh water. Basashi- raw horse meat (sashimi). Blastocyst- a miniscule ball of cells that will become an embryo. Coho, Chinook ,Chum- species of salmon. Docosahexaenoic Acid- DHA, good for (developing) brains. Embryoyo- book of poetry by Dean Young. Ensō- Shinto Buddhist meditative exercise, a brushstroke circle. Hokkaido- northernmost major island of Japan. Ikura- salmon roe sushi. Joy is So Exhausting- book of poetry by Susan Holbrook. Kefir- slightly fermented and bubbly yogurt drink. Konijvlees- Dutch for rabbit meat. Kype- the hooked jawline that develops in male spawning salmon. Lox- smoked salmon Machhapuchchhre- ‘Fishtale Mountain’, a peak sacred to Hindu’s in Nepal. Magicicada- genus of 13 or 17 year periodical cicadas. Maki- Type of sushi wrapped in nori (seaweed paper). Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals- book of poetry by Patricia Lockwood. Nevus sebaceous- rare type of birthmark, caused by enlarged oil glands under the skin.
60
Parr- another stage of baby salmon Paardenvlees- Dutch word for horse meat. Protogyny- in biology: starting life as a female, then changing into a male. In botany: flowers whose female parts mature before the male ones. Redd- salmon ‘nest’, a divot in the gravel. Riffle- preferred nesting spot for salmon, turbulent patch of stream. Sake- salmon sushi. Seawolves- Mythological wolves that took to the sea to hunt, became orcas. Snuneymuxw First Nation. Seen at Petroglyph Provincial Park, Naniamo B.C. Semelparous- reproduces only once in its lifetime, usually dies soon after. ‘shells of smaller selves’- a line from Dean Young’s poem ‘Hold On.’ Smolt- adolescent salmon. Smelt- small, oily freshwater fish. Umami- the fifth element of taste: savoury flavours. Viviparous- bearing live young. Werner Herzog- German filmmaker (among other pursuits). An unmistakable narrator. Wrasses- Small, brightly coloured marine fish. Zygote- A fertilized ‘egg,’ as in a single cell with 2 sets of chromosomes, one from each parent gamete.
61
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Steph Yates, Rachel Wallace and all of the PS Guelph crew for literally putting this book together. Thanks to Zane Koss and Mike Chaulk for many edits, better line breaks and generous suggestions. To Jay MillAr and all of the poets in the TNSOW winter 2015 long poem workshop. To Madhur Anand for her input on an early draft in the midst of her own book launch, and baby and research. Thanks to Margaret Christakos, Jenny Sampirisi, Ken Babstock and Karen Solie for teaching the poetry courses that have significantly influenced me. Thanks to labour unions, specifically Cupe 416, for ensuring equal pay and a ‘topped up’ 12 month maternity leave – during which all of these poems were written. Love to all of my siblings – Jasper, Kat & Lola and mom ‘Smudly’ for company, inspiration, support, rivalry, and accomplices. Much love to a giant Flemish Ent of a man – Steve, who continues to love and support me as a partner, messy housemate, new mother and amateur poet. To Roenigk, my little turkey, you’ve given me so much already. 62
Candace de Taeye has had poetry published in CV2, Carousel, Echolocation, and Feathertale.com. She is part of the newly formed ‘&, Collective’—a group of poets that workshops regularly within PS Guelph’s bookmaking studio space. For the last eight years she has worked during the day, and more frequently at night, as a Paramedic in downtown Toronto. She lives in Bowmanville with her husband, a young son, two dogs, two cats, four elderly treefrogs, and a large tortoise.