Three Poems

Photo: Natascha Graham

Jude Goodwin

A week of dead things

It's been a week of dead things
and this morning, a fog of sulfur
over the hyacinth, the yip-yip
of coyotes across the Blakeburn Lagoons
and a wind twisting Chinese paper and red
alder leaves above our heads as we,
two dogs and a woman,
stand shivering at the slider.
"Get it done." I speak in my high voice.
The dogs turn to me,
their eyes are white circles.
Behind them hanging
on the garden fence, a skeleton
clacks in its chains.
Soon I'll flick the switch
on our fireplace and give them
refuge. Tomorrow, we'll swap
the candy corn lights
for stars.

When?

 When the rain stops pounding
the grey cliffs
and all the birds have flown
and the sun fails to rise
or if it does, gives light
as thin as an envelope
thin enough to slide under a door
and find you, shirtless
on your bed. When the mysteries
and romances in your library
close themselves
and the orchids on your dresser
binge on tap water
and slump. When someone
in the other room
puts on a kettle and you hear
their slippers on the laminate
and the rain starts again,
pours its perpetual bloom
on your garden, fills the tin pail
soaks the flowered gloves.
When you’re already leaving
the place where you’ve set it all down
the street corner or patio,

and the radio tunes itself
as you walk away.

Occupy with flowers

Someone died this weekend
in a blue tent
on the lawn in front of our Art Gallery.
She wasnt wearing a Guy Fawkes mask
at the time, just blue hair
and some piercings,
a sign nearby read
"I was told there would be cake".

Could have been anywhere
any day, so the people say,
any other blue tent
in the downtown East side.

Put up a rough stick
cross, let the tourists through.
Rain fills a candle jar,
Ashlie written in soot
washes from it sides.