wher is home fake poem*

Mellow Mama ain’t doin’ nothin’ but doin’ nothin’. life with fibromyalgia’s like that. sitting, like eden robinson, with her feelings : old friends. trapped in her intestines : popcorn seeds

there is a lot she can’t tell you. won’t tell you. don’t tell you.

she is in her 60th year
in her vancouver bed running her lines
the whole world asleep & she pops up singing

“it’s the last time i will buy tp here
the last time i’ll make the bed
i’m goin’ back to Az with the rice i bought there last year”
& in the dream, her favourite romantic poetry prof. Rob Dunham asks her why she doesn’t work in India & her whispersecret is that Ellen D. was her gf all night long

Gaia the dog is disgusted with mama when she hears the “fff” on her lips, Ma cussin’ out the assholes driving. Gaia turns
her back to Ma, stares out the window. ma bolts for a buck
dangles her head in front of the AC. dries her hair

moody blue crows huddle on the road. not even god himself could blow the snow bright clouds that nudge the mountain tops away

a hawk above the US army freedom ranges. talons spread military choppers alarm the starlight pines & congestion relief projects but the scarlet sunset scores the sun-scalloped surface of the Superstitions. Ma sees herself spread out on the landscape like paint

bent over books
bent over boobs
boobs on tum
bob on top
on top of me
why i didn’t report
my SFU prof
on top of me
bob on top
#metoo

her groin is groan pulled
stuck at the entry point *
drives by Angel’s Ladies Brothel where the plane landed. Area 51. nothing else around for miles.

when she was just a little girl
dad told the anti-abortionists to “Fuck Off”
her mom had flowers for her, 7-up, popped-her-cherry-jello
Gramma meet her on the other side
days when it is easy to be alive

it is not hallowe’en but there are needles in the apples & bananas. she has spent most of the day magnifier on her head plucking micro-splinters out of the sides of her fingers
it could take a person down. one thorn at a time, finger at a particular angle place it, lick it, pull it, ouch! trust a must. upwelling. tears. colourless streams on a windshield

she dreams in full colour
is a purple prickly pear cactus
a rattler on the bank of the Salt River

now it is twenty degrees in her park model
narrow hallway to fold her body in
not pull her shoulders back
but hold her breath. she’s been holding it all day so far
newscasters asks folks to pick apple snails out of scottsdale waterways

a piece of fluff spooks her as it spiders across the bathroom tile & she sees faces in the kitty litter. strangers hobble by her trailer in walkers, buzz by in golf carts. ladies bob in her pool on oodles of noodles. she has become one of those gogograndparents with the tv on. she knows the authors of the books on her shelf but opens Netflix. the food party on. god bless her ‘lady of blessed whatnot’*

in the Redding newspaper: a beaver is struck by a car in Columba Park. a woman wrapped it in a towel, went for help. she will not tell us what Richard Delp was doing when she returned. the place where fire ravaged the earth this july. flames up to their doorstep.

what is that out of the corner of my eye?

girls in Tahiti don’t go to school cuz’ they can’t afford the tuition. in Target, a fella is taking a little look-see, pictures up a woman’s skirt. another woman, detained by loss prevention agents, switches the labels at Walmart. she remembers those agents calling the cops on her when she was eleven. Molson/Coors Canada are getting into the cannabis business. more people were killed in the settling of the US than in WWII. loomis trucks are being blown up in Johannesburg with the guards still in them. nothin’ really to write home about

are all the girls going to bed at night like beached
refer to the whaler’s dictionary.

there was an old lady who lived in a shoe
she blesses each swallow of water
peace is somewhere

bill bissett time p.160
fake poem jamie reid a temporary stranger p. 37
an honest woman jonina kirton p.6
amber dawn p.sodom road exit p.10