11/29/2020 Poetry by Ashton Carter Alexandru Paraschiv CC A Portrait of Erin Lindsey I. I remember that time you stole mom’s scarf and wore it to school with your Avenged Sevenfold ball cap cocked diagonally across your head, and you smashed Kyle Greenwood into a locker for calling me a faggot (I think he pissed himself), laughing as he limped away, laughing as you got detention. Or that time you walked through traffic despite my protest (or maybe in spite of it), smiling as car horns blared, smiling at my cowardice. You, already the heavyweight champion of making little boys cry and having a strange, Herculean irregard for your own safety; and I, demented, receiving all the encouragement and all the endless little lies about “my bravery”. II. The baby who would punch you in the face turned into the girl who would punch you in the face, turned into the woman who would punch you in the face, turned into someone capable of very careful love. Someone who once made me bleed (profusely), who wears a studded leather jacket and a bright wide anger. She has enough to stop a train and each one of it’s passengers-- this similar smile (I don’t escape) that presses her lips into the cat-head on principle of summers without a stop to the sky or else a reckoning, and yet, still, I am back here on the trail in the woods behind Gram’s house, beneath those red and white cones hanging from the powerline, thinking about swimming by that public beach with the big mother turtle who ate fingers and toes, thinking about that first ochre-tinged taste of Crown from mom’s old china cabinet. I turn around to leave, the sun behind me, still wearing clothes two sizes too big still with a memory of your baby fingers, those indecipherable pink digits too often balled into a fist. III. When I hear the word “junkie” I think about what it really means to be waiting for a phone call-- one where (I imagine) I am told you are in need of my organs or my blood, or the right words or my collection of tackle or my sweaters that are too big for you. Or the recipe for mom’s butter tarts, or maybe a book about love or the marrow from my bones or something I can give you-- that it will fall to me to bear you witness to watch the door for imposters and thieves and press my thumb against your eyes and watch your body being put in a furnace and please forgive me for this because sometimes I am furious, sometimes I just want to grab your shoulders and shake the poison out of you I want you to remember what it was like before things fell apart. IV. I saw you crossing the intersection at Bank and Wellington, trailing the sun in your hair drinking Timmie’s and smiling at the old man from Arnprior who sells lilacs and roses out of his pickup truck, who always smells like soil and calls you Bella. I watch you watch the world reflected in your eye, magnificent. You work around the corner, three minutes from Parliament, taking notes in a faceless skyrise and living in a shitty little apartment near Britannia where you are content buying succulents and kitty litter, end tables, a string of lights to hang over your balcony-- you arrive home in the evening, water your plants, pet your orange cat. There is a note pushed under your door from your landlady. Maintenance is coming tomorrow at three, on the nose to inspect your life and report any damages. Ashton Carter is a Canadian poet and writer from Northern Ontario who is concerned about your impression of him. He spends his time being talked into buying $103 worth of skin cleanser while at the mall (he was there to get pillowcases) and angling on clever gifts to get his boyfriend.
Susan Kay Anderson
12/5/2020 09:54:53 pm
Oh! I love the last stanza, especially! Great details.
LaVonne Boyer
12/6/2020 08:06:24 am
Your writing is powerful. Use it to heal yourself and in putting it out there it help others to heal as well. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2024
Categories |