Some Poems from The Pumphead Years 2014-2015

Some poems from about 2014-2015

Robert Came To Woo All The Way From The Planet Mongo

Robert came to woo all the way 

from the planet Mongo, on a 

grand and elaborate journey

flying the invisible space

ship Seekret Luvkraft to earth, then

driving by rented car to the

centre of the universe, where

he holed up in a hotel room

none too shabby drinking nervous

coffees, one after another,

until I showed up. “Sorry to 

keep you waiting,” said I. “Pish tosh,” 

grinned Robert. “Denizens of the

planet Mongo have an air of

accomplishment, of grace.” And he 

licked his extra-terrestrial 

poet lips, reminding me that

a girl from earth is a prize, no 

matter what. Good thing I wore my

prettiest dress and best heels for 

Robert from the planet Mongo,

who came all the way across the

galaxy for this. This, of course, 

could have meant tea, cakes, ices and

nary a crisis, but he reached 

long poety fingers up my 

prettiest earth dress and we joined,

creature to creature, until dark.

He was pleased. “Three thumbs up!” he crowed,

waving his trousers. “I must go 

now,” I said. “I am new to space 

travel.” “Can I not tempt you to

stay?” asked Robert from the planet 

Mongo. “See the confidence a

bit of travel gives a plain Earth 

girl? Can I coax you to planets 

far from the universe? Will you 

lose sight of the shore?” The coffee 

with two sugars (how could he know 

I take four?) he bought me at The 

Second Cup is sitting untouched 

on the nightstand. Before I leave, 

I peel the MONGO sticker from 

his suitcase. I like prizes, too.

My Neighbour Nancy

Nancy says in a quiet

voice Now why would someone do

a thing like that? She touches

the sheared-off necks and flinches.

They won’t grow back. I’m sorry.

The last one was not sheared off,

but its head hangs over the

fence with marks along the neck

where it was pulled and left to 

die. No, it doesn’t look good.

I don’t tell Nancy I used

to find them hateful. I still 

have a picture of a man 

with his arm slung around a

sunflower in my garden.

He was the cruellest man I

ever met. The sunflower,

sad to say, believed every

lie he told. I know it was

afraid to think for itself.

There was another man, I 

don’t say, who lured sunflowers 

home and took advantage of

them, shaking their heads until

they gave up their seeds to him.

Nancy doesn’t know why I

planted these brutes in my yard

in the first place. She hasn’t

heard me whisper to them when

I water them every day.

All of you are ugly, I 

say. All of you deserve to 

grow only because I say 

so, and only until I 

say it’s time to say goodbye.

There must be someone else who

understands. Before Nancy 

goes back home, she says ‘I hope

the person who took them is

good to them.’ ‘At least,’ I say.

The Beautiful Dream of Miss Crocodile

She has dreams that are almost 

beautiful and in them she 

is beautiful, too, her tail 

restored instead of replaced

by the one she drags around 

now, a heavy cast-iron

thing shaped like the skillet I

used to make scrambled eggs this 

morning. I hope she doesn’t 

think I’m making fun of her.

She wishes she were grateful, 

but there’s a bad taste in her 

mouth when she tells me about 

things she’s sure she remembers 

but has no way of knowing: 

gunshots that smelled like Chanel,

the number of beers he drank 

before and after, grunty 

sex – she saw them at it, she 

swears – and the colour of lies.

That lies have colour – now that’s 

interesting to me! I 

lean close and listen to her

warning of chartreuse: sickly 

green-yellow that rolls out from 

liars’ words and dribbles down 

their chins. They can’t see it, she

says, But you will if you look 

for it. I squint and think back.

She’s right: Sticky, sickly green.

I want to tell her I can

get that tail back for her, like 

her beautiful dream, though I

know a dream like that would smear

green all over the place. It 

makes me wonder if I have 

anything congealed on me

already that I can’t scrape 

off. Cast iron’s plug ugly, 

I say. But it’s strong. Real strong.

Trophies

No settling for. I may never want to 

come back. I take my trophies, my few and

meagre possessions. The rest I leave to

chance, to you, or to history, along 

with a garden that, let’s face it, any

dink could have planted. Anyone will do

when anything does. Nothing is too good.

I have saved five black and amber tails in

a glass jar with a tight lid. This is my

reward. The tight lid is overkill. I

know they cannot escape. The tigers were

eaten up long ago, swallowed whole in

a moment of triumph. You had better 

believe me. I have their ends to prove it.

I do not have to prove anything else,

not strength, not honour. Not now, but someday 

I will open the jar and release them, 

scattering rinds of blood and fur upon 

better earth than this, sprouting a new crop, 

worthy prey. Keep your innocent tulips,

wayward hyacinths. New days are coming.

Good Queen Arbitrary

From sound sleep I am wakened again. Go

away. Ungracious as ever. A kick

in her direction, a tumult of sheets

and comforter. Good Queen Arbitrary 

Forgiveness and Utter Hypocrisy 

is back. Her name seems longer than ever.

Hypocrisy is new, I say. When did 

that happen? Epiphanies are rare these

days. She spreads her arms heavenward. Better

to admit to hypocrisy than to

aim for honesty, she says. Her logic

is too much for me at this time of night. 

She offers me the three wishes. Same as

before, please. The usual successes, 

thank you. She is begged for things less bold than 

this. None of it should matter, but it does.

I am ready to tell my old self there 

is more to revenge than getting even. 

I think it is inherent to success.

It is what we desire if we are too 

slow or too late to deter or compete. 

Crazy Little Thing Called Lurve

We are bad! shout the shiny things. Bad and

everywhere! We are at the back of your 

desk. We are between the pages of that 

ponderous book that you pretend to read,

casually, at an outdoor café. 

We are even in the shower. My great

big new show-and-tell shiny thing is a 

stolen kiss. I cannot stop thinking of 

it. I drift to sleep with it. It follows 

me through dreams and nightmares and all kinds of

hypnagogic stuff and then pries open

the window – I guess it was cheerful in 

its day – A beautiful morning, this! it 

hollers, before I am ready to brace 

myself against it. I cannot find a 

way to stop. Better the devil you know, 

says the shiny thing, Than the one you don’t.

Innocent Enough

She looks innocent enough. Sometimes the

regulars give her space to seat her tail 

comfortably, but she never asks for

favours, just the same thing each week: coffee 

stirred into hot chocolate to keep her 

disposition sweet. I will never hurt 

you, she promises. Why not? we might ask, 

though we should never ask such things, of her,

of anyone. The way she drains a cup, 

swift and sure, is answer enough. You know

how I got here, she says, her voice lowered,

as we might find it extraordinary 

to see a tiger in an almost French 

café. We may have heard the rumours. She

tore the rivers out of his landscape and

ripped holes in his history, they say. If 

it is true, we must tread lightly, offer

her a gâteau basque and repeat nothing.

Little Love Poem

I love you and it is limitless he 

said. That night she ate dark chocolate, one

piece after another, delicious. I 

love you more than that, he said. He took the

last piece for himself and kissed it to her. 

She tasted love alright (the limitless

kind), dark roast coffee, the Sunday paper 

and undertones, lovely undertones: notes 

of floral this and that, cashmere and spice.

He must mean it, she thought and let herself 

be pulled in. You have changed me, he explained.

Stupid

The poor thing, said the daughter of Mary 

Margaret. How could you give a cat a 

name like that? Mary Margaret had no 

pity. Look at it, she said. She beckoned,

but Stupid did not move from the centre 

of the road. It stood there unblinking.You 

see? How could I name it anything else?

That was the summer Mary Margaret 

had a stroke and never spoke again. But

she sings, said the daughter, when family

came calling. She remembers every

song she learned from her school days. I’ll put the

kettle on. We’ll have tea and sandwiches.

Mary Margaret, sing something for us.

I didn’t know she could sing like that, said

my father, between bites. No one did, said 

the daughter. A marvel, isn’t she? We 

listened and drank tea for awhile before 

heading back to the city. I’m told that

house is just four thousand dollars, said 

my father. We should buy it and move there.

That’s how much it costs to live anywhere

in the sticks, said my mother. There’s nothing

special about Mary Margaret’s house. 

It’s safer there, said my father, Except

I almost ran over her cat. It was 

right in the middle of the road. That’s

why she calls it Stupid, said my mother.

I slept on the ride home. I did not think

again of Mary Margaret except 

once, at a New Year’s party. I’ve been here 

before, I said, When I was a kid. Strange 

what we find familiar. They stood in the 

road, unblinking, the pair of them, one as 

defiant as the other. Come, Stupid.

My Very Practically Perfect Universe

The moth holes in my favourite sweater 

are not holes at all. They are portals to 

a universe I like better than this 

one. I am invited to push past the 

gnaw (that supports nothing, let alone life) 

finger by finger until its vortex 

hauls me all the way in. I will show you

my new planets and stuff, taking pen to 

paper: O halcyon days! Things are calm. 

I have peace of mind and all the sweets I

can eat. I will try to see God better

from here. Nothing hurts. No more good enough, 

bad enough, enough enough. No holy

joes to tell me what I must make of it.

Everything You've Done Wrong

I didn’t know it would be this easy.

All it took was a jam jar containing

all the woes of the world. He shook the jar.

It’s really worldly? he asked. Nothing left

out? Naw, I said. It’s all there. Everything 

you can think of. Everything done to me.

And everything I did back. The horror. 

(The horror I’ll never find out about, 

you mean, he said, but he took it in stride.)

I deserve this? he asked. You don’t have to 

open the jar, I said. You don’t have to 

read the label. If you do, remember:

You’ll pay penance for everything gone wrong, 

past, present and future. It’s a gift. It’s 

a secret between us and only us.

Here, I accept, he said. Anything that 

makes you happy. Anything to oblige. 

I should have thought of this ages ago.

Light heAded

Her neighbour warns her he will not work at

things like this. She sees waves of colour and 

pain and methylene chloride. The cocktail 

she stirs on the window-frames is making 

the room float up in colours she does not 

recognise. They could be twenty years past, 

these colours, or seventy, or five weeks. 

By now her head is beginning to pound.

She is not yet witty or urbane but 

she will put down the old toothbrush and the 

fumes and slip into a pretty dress. You 

see, says her neighbour, all you have to do 

is stop trying so hard to be happy.

Wicked to the Bone

She has been wicked as long as she can

remember. Mother had told her, Hush that

fishwife voice! Nobody likes that! and gave

her a swat. She should have hung her head, but

she was asked to be quiet, not sweet. When

mother looked away, she made a face and

went on being as wicked as she pleased.

She made the same face years later. This guy

we’ll call Buddy told her the reason he

hurt her was that she was too quiet and not

sweet enough. That’s two reasons, she said, 

softly. She picked up his couch and threw it 

out the door, where it smashed into bits. You’re

wicked, said Buddy. Wicked and crazy.

She met a lady who was as quiet 

as she, and told the lady all manner

of wicked things. Pour me a drink, said the

lady. Let me tell you a thing or two. 

It’s good and well to be quiet, and if 

sweetness is your nature, so be it. But

make no mistake – you’re wicked to the bone.

Wicked to the bone! She liked that phrase and

whispered it to her giddy, wicked self

so quietly you couldn’t quite hear. One 

look at her though, at those glinty eyes, the 

almost-sweet smile – and you’d know. No remorse. 

Yeah, wicked to the bone. I like the sound 

of that, she says. You don’t want to argue.

Hopelessly Violet

Amanda cannot see straight any

more, not even after several 

cups of coffee. She has learned to see

other things, to be unimpressed by 

detail, to think the world looks better 

without edges. People have never 

been so easy on her eyes. Out of

cellophane and food colouring she 

makes a pair of contact lenses. She

is teaching herself vision as an

art. The lenses are purple and it 

feels funny to see everything in

a violet light. It is better, though,

than seeing through blue or crystal clear, 

either of which would be so sad that 

her heart would finish breaking and fall

apart somewhere inside her. If that

should happen, says Amanda to her

best friend, Please explain to everyone 

what happened. I loved you all deeply.

Amanda’s best friend is horrified 

that after all, it is something so 

simple as a heartbreaking blue (or

crystal clear) contact lens that could end 

everything. She understands life is 

fragile, but this is ridiculous. 

She is not the pious type, but she 

drops to her knees when Amanda walks 

up with those purple eyes: Heavenly 

Father forgive us our sins, bless us 

and protect us. Please keep us safe from

lies and colour and heartbreak. She points

out to Amanda the crocuses 

that have begun to bloom along the

hillside next to her house. Thank goodness 

they are purple this year. She picks a

handful for Amanda and reminds 

her they will be followed by lilacs.

Road Trip With Miss Kahlo

Frida is driving first. She likes to tell 

people it takes her longer to get to 

anyplace because her license is new 

and she is still learning how to get there. 

Most of the time they do not get the joke. 

Frida has been dog-tired of riding 

buses. I am not the kind to ride a 

bus, but at the same time I can picture 

us sitting side by side, knitting, planning 

the evening’s cocktails. With mint, I would say.

When it is my turn, I meander. As

explorers, we do not get lost. There is 

no such thing as a mistake or a wrong 

turn. I pull over when I find a patch 

of mint growing by the side of the road.

I claim it to make tonight’s mojitos. 

A woman drives by, slowly, as I pick

the mint. At first I think it is Frida’s

double. The coolness, almost indifference 

of her gaze is inherently Frida.

But this woman is lifeless, sparkless of

eye, the kind Frida watches as she plaits 

flowers in her hair and shrugs. Chick spends more

time dressing for things than actually 

doing them, she says, as we drive away.

Mengues' Cat

The Japanese tiger in the vitrine 

next to my bed growls when I make mistakes. 

Early, late, it makes no difference. Big

mistakes, small mistakes, it does not matter.

Last night I hear a low ghrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and switch on

the light. It is three in the morning. I

am wearied of this. “You do not learn your 

lessons easily,” says the tiger. I 

sigh, squinting at it in the suddenly

too-bright room. For such a small tiger, it

is garish and noisy. “Are you blind?” it 

asks. “Just the opposite,” I reply. “I 

want a good look at you, since you haunt me 

almost every day. I have not even 

looked to see if you have a tail or not.” 

It glares at me. No words pass between us.

“I am not surprised,” says the tiger, at 

last. “You do not notice details. You are 

easily fooled. Even at this late hour.”

I am offended. I tell the tiger 

I am not the same person I was when 

it saw me last. I have changed. I have been 

on Sinbad’s voyage, I tell it. It squints

back at me. “No,” it says. “You are foolish.”

Easter Sunday

He is tired, he says, yawning goodnight, but 

he is not tired. He lets it ring once, hangs

up and walks out coatless, though at Easter,

with wind like this, it is downright cold. He 

feels hot enough after the signal. When 

he gets there, he sees the light in the room 

where he soon will be. He wonders how 

long he dares stay.The light is on for ten 

minutes, then the house goes dark. He smiles. She

is a smart one, a cautious one. He waits

another ten minutes, twenty minutes.

He gets cold, stamps his feet. No damn woman

he has known has had any sense of time. 

After two hours she still does not come 

out. He heads back home. It is too late to 

call again. Maybe he should have stayed on 

the phone, maybe this is a mistake. The 

next day, he finds her on the church steps. Last 

night, he asks, slowly. Oh, she says, putting 

on her flowered garden gloves, I heard you. 

I just couldn’t get away. Oh Lord, he 

says, Please, don’t repent. Nothing’s worse than that.

She Is A Shambles

She is a shambles. Two coffees will do

that to you. Do not tell me what you put 

in them, she tells him at the coffee shop.

Just give them to me. The sugar alone 

makes her giddy, but that is what she needs.

He has switched to tea. We do not need tea,

the way we sink to our knees for coffee,

she says. We take tea. We take it on the

front porch, cordially, and if he knew 

what crumpets were, she would take them with it.

It is an addiction, he knows, and the

thrill of being indulged that makes her say

these audacious things. He wants her to say 

“take tea” again in her sugar-high voice. 

Everything she says sounds like a craving.

The Civil War Is Now

The Civil War is now.

Each province, every state. 

I say O my charming

opponent. Drop your gloves.

I am in this for real,

I am in this to the

death. I am serious.

Do not misunderstand.

Drop them with me, he says. 

Put down your arms and take

my hand. We will make a 

waltz of this and mess the

others up. It will be

civil war on a grand 

scale. The time of our lives.

Barbecue Sauce

Among other things: vinegar, 

whatever honey is left in 

the squeeze bear, ketchup, ground pepper, 

tabasco, mixed Montreal spice, 

brown sugar. Once things are mixed well

(I advised Mr. to buy a

mortar and pestle, one of the

basics I insisted upon 

in New Life) the sauce is tasted 

and I am happy when he licks 

his fingers a second time and 

says Yes, brilliant. You came through.

He asks if I would like to go 

out later to the part of town 

where artists live. We can dress up, 

he says. Nineteen twenties. We’ll have

pretend champagne. We can go hand 

in hand to the old cemetery, 

where the civil war soldiers are 

buried. I’ll bring a blanket, and.

He wants to make specialness. I 

fall for it because I want to.

The Right Cocktail

On their way home, it happens, and when it 

happens, it happens seamlessly. He sniffs 

the air for her new scent. He can tell the

difference. The truth is, everything is 

different. She has not become someone

beautiful, a stranger, or Colette, or

Audrey Hepburn. There is not enough of

her to do that. The new someone is half 

woman, half assortment of feral beasts, 

the eyes of a cat and tylenol. Her

new heart is as fast as a hummingbird’s. 

He may not notice at first. The cat eyes

catch his and pin him. The hurried little 

bird heart beats loud enough for him to hear 

from across the room. He is whipped by the

tail of one feral thing or another. 

She downs a couple of tylenols and 

watches. It will be a long night ahead. 

She has become, at last, the right cocktail.

Sum of Its Parts

I bring Mr. S a bag full of rat

parts and silver wire. We open the

bag before supper and spread everything

onto the floor. I forget about the 

couple across the street, whom I saw this

afternoon pledging undying love (he 

was on bended knee and all). The things you 

see when you just sit quiet on your front

porch, I think. Say what? Mr. S asks. I

was just thinking, I say aloud, this time.

There is a first for everything. I saw 

the first pledge about five years ago, the

two of them gazing into each other’s 

eyes at the end of the dinner table, 

her face cupped in his hands. And he made a 

wish in front of everyone: I wish for 

us always to be as in love as we 

are tonight. That’s lovely, I said to her

afterward. Isn’t it, she smiled, adding,

But things are never as they seem, are they?

I will forget this soon enough. I have 

a habit of forgetting everything. 

I watch Mr. S light the grill. I bring 

the rat parts and tools to the patio. 

He pencils an X on each head and tail 

and finds a fine bit. I drill delicate 

holes in the ears while he loads the grill with 

steaks and sweet potatoes. I have never

made art before supper before, declares 

Mr. S. Another first, I reply.

That Yard Sale Smell

Robert’s couch has a secret. Robert’s couch

hates him. Robert tries to be friendly, but

the couch thinks him disingenuous and

it steals his spare change as often as it 

can. Robert is too stupid to know this.

Stupid, shifty, shiftless. The couch wishes

it had a head it could shake, with contempt.

The official story goes like this: the 

couch sees nothing. Repeat after me! says

Robert. Nothing to see here! says the couch 

in the most dutiful monotone it 

can muster. Truthfully, no one here sees

anything anyway, except the front

door and perhaps the carpet, but from a 

distance, and who cares? The couch thinks he is 

grandstanding. The door is right. If he is

guilty of anything, it is slumming.

The bed may not have much choice, but it has 

better taste and snickers when it hears wet

snivels and boo hoos that Robert forces

on it in the night. How can you stand it?

The bed shrugs. A drag, thinks the couch. It should 

be a lawyer, not this overstuffed stale

pink monstrosity with a yard sale smell.

My Recalcitrant Snowdrops

My recalcitrant snowdrops bend toward

Schubert (or perhaps the oatmeal cookies

baked with cinnamon and brown sugar that

Schubert surely favoured). They are still warm.

Invisible

The first time it happened, right under their 

noses, she rolled beneath the couch and lay 

still for hours until The Tonight Show. At

last, one of them cried in panic brief though 

real: “Where’s the child?” She emerged to scolding,

tears. But just like that, she had a secret. 

She said aloud: I am invisible.

In college, some studied art or concept. 

She studied both the art and concept of 

plain sight. How invisible was she, could 

she be? After class, she stayed at her desk 

and faded: toes first, then feet, fingers, arms,

ponytail, and finally, everything

else. Students came and went and saw nothing.

It is true then, she said. The first time had

been a thrill. The second, an art. The third

would be the last. There was a party, the

kind with gossip and beer. She sat alone

and did not bother to observe. Oh, he

said, afterwards. Well. I didn’t even

see you. He was neither thrilled nor amused.

She was puzzled. Invisibility 

had not turned her into art after all.

She did not exist unless conjured, a 

magic trick. She figured she was supposed 

to have been ashamed, not invisible.

She remembered the smell of the wooden 

floor from under the couch for the first time.

Camouflage

Amanda says I will need more than a 

pith helmet and a canteen if we are 

serious about hunting for tigers. 

The idea is to let them think they 

are the ones hunting you. Then you turn the 

tables. Plunge the knife in. Game over. She 

sees the lines running down my body and

her voice gentles. There has been hardship. “Are 

you sure you want to do this again?” she 

asks. “I lost an arm,” I remind her. This

is only proper. “It will regrow,” she

reminds me back. “I see it already.” 

I pull away and tell her it might as

well be a leg or a claw or someone 

else’s arm. I do not want to discuss 

it. Amanda leans in for a closer 

look. “Stripes,” she says. Camouflage is even

better than hunting. She sharpens her knife.

You Are A Bad Woman

You are a bad woman, she says to the

mirror. How dare you call yourself a muse. 

Then she reminds herself that muses are

not self-appointed. She has been chosen.

He can call the muse in room 502 

anytime, though she is at her best when 

she has coffeed and showered. That means he 

will wait until ten o’clock to rouse her.

She is already up when he calls. He

slips his voice in next to hers. Attentions,

he says, Affections. He wants her to reach

for him. He needs this more than he admits.

She stays away from the mirror. He picks

up a brush and paints her, right there in the

bathroom, one bold stroke and then another. 

It is too bold to be watercolour.

It is too swift to be acrylic or

oil. It is something of his invention,

or hers – is that not what being a muse

is all about? He cannot get enough.

“I hate it when people drop in,” she says.

“I’m never dressed and I never have more 

than coffee and stale cookies.” She laughs, he 

does not. There are muses everywhere, here.

All you do is open your eyes to them. 

When he opens his eyes all he sees is

room 502. Asleep, awake, his muse

waits for him there with a brush and those paints.

Anger

Her anger isn’t the quick, simmering,

or scowling kind, but the hard kind, the kind 

that’s like facing a sharp west wind and is 

full of surprise (in her life surprises 

are always nasty) followed by prickles 

of fear (if this now, what’s next?) then the seep 

of nausea. It’s familiar to her now,

rage strong enough to shake her to her knees

even before she opens the door. It

doesn’t matter who it is anymore.

She’ll still see him sitting in her armchair 

under an ornately-framed poster, one 

he’d hung years ago, insisting it was 

a painting of Degas. (“He was even 

in court fighting his wife for possession 

of the thing,” she wants to say, when she thinks 

about someone asking her about it.) 

He’d been pleased, at the time, that the poster, 

ballerinas posed upon a stage of 

avocado green and harvest gold, had 

matched the chair he’d chosen to match the rug.

Anger will win if she has thoughts like this.

She’ll have instead the echo of footsteps, 

the sound of snow crunching underfoot, 

a car door slamming, engine, then quiet.

Mapmaking

The new lands I discovered have no maps.

On top of everything else, I will learn 

to be a mapmaker. Our house I shall

mark as southernmost south. There will still be

room to go as far north or east or west

as I want or dare. The amenities 

are drawn as follows: The first Robert’s house. 

The second Robert’s house. The third Robert’s

house. The house of the third Robert’s disgrace.

I am with the fourth Robert, whose house I 

circle with a heart. I draw question marks 

for the fifth and sixth Roberts. His hand as

steady as a surgeon’s, the fourth Robert 

takes a pen and draws lines east and west and 

south from my chin, connecting arms, hips, knees 

and toes. The fourth Robert says he will not 

leave this house unless upon a gurney.

Early

Amanda doesn’t remember very

much these days, but she can tell you the day

the thing went up and stayed up for good, the

boxed wood and plastic-tufted tanenbaum

that needed protracted assembly, picked 

up on clearance at Eaton’s. She wanted 

the thing up and done up early, just in 

case. September first. She remembers that.

Christmas came as usual and nothing 

bad happened. It seemed right to Amanda 

that the thing was the reason. No one would 

dare wrest Christmas or anything else from 

her. She had the rules of the universe 

figured out, all before the age of twelve. 

A child prodigy, she says now, with a

wry smile. All it took was being early.

The first years were different. Early meant that

around the seventeenth of December, 

Amanda hauled the thing from the attic

and plied its branches with bells and stars and

silver teardrops while the others, amused 

if complicit, watched. The seventeenth turned

into the fifth the following year, then

November thirteenth, then October third.

Amanda thinks those dates are accurate.

The day she discovered the meaning of 

early, she learned the importance of good

stewardship, good history. She knows she

won’t live forever. She’ll remember to 

find someone determined, as defiant

as she, willing to risk all to put, say,

a gilt angel atop the thing, keep safe.

Fake Paris

Paris is not going to see me this spring.

Paris will open its blooms to other 

lovers’ arms. Paris is going to miss me.

Paris will not be the same. Its sadness

will not be celebrated and, well, I 

fear Paris has become ordinary

with an ordinary sadness, just like 

any city and it deserves better, 

just like me. You know, I should miss Paris

but if it is ordinary, I will 

not miss it one bit. You, I, we will have 

to pretend. We will flirt and squint so you

look dapper and I look young and we will

hit it off in an alternate city 

of lights, the kind you string up for Christmas

or birthdays. Our fake Paris will not laugh 

at us when we dance even though it has

seen a million like us and is not fooled.

Mr. X

In a year or so Mr. X 

will look like he’s stepped straight out of 

that Grant Wood, minus the pitchfork. 

She shouldn’t laugh. He’ll think it’s drink 

that makes her giggly. He’ll lick his 

lips should her glance catch his, fidget 

with his ring, not untruthful, at 

least not yet, not about this. The 

details, in ten seconds: ball and

chain (she winces) could care less (she 

winces again) but wants it with 

every guy on the block but him. 

And, he grins, as far as the block

goes, he stacks up good (a third wince). 

He says You know, you remind me

of a painting, and she nearly

snorts her drink through her nose. She may

as well laugh. She knows what comes next.

April 1

‘I hope my weeds do not forget 

me,’ said Miss Bloom. ‘Who wants to be 

forgettable, even to you? 

Cut my canes to the ground, as you 

would before winter. My only 

hope is to grow from there.’ She was

not angry (but everything looks 

like rage to me, I said under 

my breath, then I shut up fast so 

she would not see my smirk). ‘I have 

seen jadedness before,’ (I had 

a houseful of it, bottles drunk 

secretly like booze or poison – 

strong stuff) I said, then went into 

the yard after the cold and sawed 

off the canes that made her suffer.