Samantha’s Daily Poem
Things you wish would last
You lay your head
on my head
which is sort of like
trying to get comfortable
underneath a chest of drawers
but your hands are on my cheeks
and your voice is sweet
so I wish only
that it would last
just before you fall asleep
you ask me what p-u-s spells
I tell you
and you laugh
you’re a funny pus, mama
I ask you what you think it means
but you’re already asleep
I lay under your heavy skull for a long time
listening to your breath in my ear
calling on my body
to remember this
forever.
Wandering mind
My brain knows things
like my old friend Annie’s phone number
before she moved away in grade four
and how Justin Bieber
and Miley Cyrus
have the same haircut
every day
I send it out hunting
for morsels of constructive things
but it gets distracted
like the fish
who can’t resist
the morbid flashiness
of a lure.
Love affair with a wingback chair
I clean off the chair
it is my quarantine
in a sea of the discarded
notebooks full of old notes
a knapsack with a broken zipper
an orphaned cord
I sit back on this upholstered island
the piles of stuff surround me like sharks
that cannot get me
it’s been so long
since I’ve started a novel
I’m almost shy
did I used to do it
with my legs crossed
did I start with tea
or make it a few pages in
but the novel remembers
the chair too
they take over
in that way lovers sometimes do
when you wonder
how they knew exactly
what to do.
What they don’t tell you in parenting books
I am determined
that you will eat your lentil burger
even though you’ve already spotted
the fries and you want to dip them
in ketchup so bad
you become a single-minded
blazing hot tantrum of fries-wanting madness
and I cannot find the page
in my head that tells me
give in on this one
so my rage at your unreasonableness
and the way your whine pinches my skull
spills out of my gut
and I can tell by how my husband
goes quiet that he knows
I have gone off-leash
I need to yell
and possibly do some
smashing
but instead I announce to my family
that I am going to clap very loudly
which I do
over and over and over
so that it feels like boiling water
on my palms
and they tell you in parenting books
that patience can give way to bone
that moments land
when you have no softness
left to give
they may even tell you
that you will want to do
what you cannot do
but whoever said deep breaths are enough
should try beating a pillow
laughing louder than they can yell
applauding for nobody
until their hands are fat and sore
because only then could I find
that breath
only then could I find
my hands
cool and gentle
on your tired face
only then could I find
my other voice
the one I use
for stories
that I make up
in the dark
as I lie beside you
forgiven
and sing you to sleep.
Wisdom
Your wisdom is not inside you
waiting to be seen
it must be earned
like anything good
but it is not playing
hard to get
it is wide open
calling to you
over and over
finish eating
your present circumstance
don’t you get it
there is a feast of understanding
a growth spurt of love
a freedom you didn’t know
you were missing
all you must do
is digest where you’ve been
and fall forward
your wisdom will catch you.
