Poetry

Drummond Island, 2024

We missed the northern lights said the boy, and his dark eyes bore onto me the beauty. I wondered who was this “we” and did she know her fortune. Was it the gas station girl who recommended the Mexican restaurant or the visitor center girl who revealed her preference for solo hikes in bright sunshine under the late October sky?

I wish I had ordered the pesto chicken instead of enchiladas in that former bowling alley-turned-restaurant with the tiki bar and video games shoved into corners where I saw the hunters we met on the other side of the Island with their sons holding rifles, listening for the dogs so they could shoot their first rabbit.

We bought the dark-eyed boy’s comic book. The one he was hawking between the pizza warmer and the cash register. It wasn’t very good but then I don’t care for comics or hikes at the end of October but there I was watching the young man with a Dutch boy bob remembering Dolomite rocks and Alvers and four-foot waves pretending they were ocean swells.

Eternal Rest Grant unto You

Death comes frequently in large families

and the sensation of a cold forehead no longer pulsating with life

is familiar to your lips.

You know the funeral directors by name,

and the florists,

and the arrangement of couches and chairs in unused libraries

where you sit uncomfortably and catch up with distant cousins.

You walk among the flowers, pay your respects to the first row

of black-clad mourners.

You know who sent the terrarium, and the statue of St Joseph,

and the fringed angel blanket.

You look down at the stiff hands of the faithful departed

and sigh.

“He looks good, doesn’t he?” you say.

Or, “They did her makeup very well.”

You gather with small groups watching slide shows

trying to recall where each photo was taken.

Death comes frequently in large families

where old aunts recite the rosary in high, shrill voices

while the after-work crowd gathers behind closed doors.

You know the way to every cemetery in town without having to follow the hearse.

You know who will nose ahead and who will be the pall bearers.

Who will try to lighten the scene with a small joke.

Whose wail will echo in your head for weeks to come.

Death is frequent and

death is final, and

death comes and goes same as

old boyfriends and broken toys

leaving wistful memories

blessing us with its faint and subtle fragrance

Soon your day will come, too

and will you stand above it all, watching,

or will you stand in your usual place, alternately crying

and laughing,

and recite the familiar refrain,

and let perpetual light shine upon her.