Wife  


And now our cats and strange men share your body.
A straw man made this distance
between us and put an end to singing
till he went away and you dallied with the edge.
Ah, the razor cut so deep.  Are you still sleeping 
with pills?  Your scars hardly show.  Silence

was never your style, unless a twisting cold silence
that broke into a scream, moving your small perfect body
uneasy ways, smashed plates, slashed wrists, and sleeping
alone.  You always begged for distance,
you who remain stubborn on the edge
of my life, tough as a nut, gaily singing

Joplin songs in a town more used to Sunday singing.
You burst the crust of Fredericton's silence,
goading indigent women over the edge
of feminism, while I clutched your body
like a spar.  The cats kept their distance.
I remember the weight and smell of their sleeping.

Your gamin face was always calm in sleeping,
afraid of me, faking it, nobody was singing
then.  It became easy to fabricate distance.
All the things we said could not refute the silence.
I learned other uses for my body,
archery, sunlit shafts at the bulleye's edge.

You stayed inside and watched the sun edge
towards winter.  you left while I was sleeping
drunk or drugged, sheep in a wolf's body.
In Calgary, he took you places where there was singing
every night, got bored, abandoned you to silence.
Razor in your hand, you tried to abolish distance

between the expected and the real.  Distance 
shrank like a spent cock on the edge
of his bed, your blood.  I saw you later once.  Silence
for the good times, nervous laughter, I sleeping
with somebody else, who did not mind me singing
nasally flat.  Sometimes holding her I forgot you body.

Your body, my body, conspired to create this distance.
How we came this far from singing puts an edge 
on all we were, brings trouble sleeping, gnawing silence.


								may 6/oct 19/80/T.O.




Wife   (1983)


And now our cats and strange men share your body.
A straw man made this distance
between us and put an end to singing
till he went away and you dallied with the edge.
Ah, the razor cut so deep.  Are you still sleeping 
with pills?  Your scars hardly show.  Silence

was never your style, unless a twisting cold silence
that broke into a scream, moving your small perfect body
uneasy ways, smashed plates, slashed wrists, and sleeping
alone.  You always begged for distance,
you who remain clinging at the edge
of my life, punk-brave, gaily singing

Joplin songs in a town more used to Sunday singing.
You burst the crust of Fredericton's silence,
goading indigent women over the edge
of feminism, while I clutched your body
like a spar.  The cats kept their distance.
I remember the weight and smell of their sleeping.

Your gamin face was always turned in sleeping,
afraid of me, faking it, nobody was singing
then.  We learned a brittle distance.
All the things we said could not refute the silence.
I learned other uses for my body,
archery, sunlit shafts at the bulleye's edge.

You stayed inside and watched the sun edge
towards winter.  you left while I was sleeping
drunk or drugged, sheets tight round my body.
In Calgary, he took you places where there was singing
every night, got bored, abandoned you to silence.
Razor in your hand, you tried to abolish distance

between the expected and the real.  Distance 
shrank like a spent cock, your blood on the edge
of his bed.  Seeing you now, in Toronto, in silence
for the good times, and nervous laughter, me sleeping
with somebody else, who wakes me with singing,
who is not you.  Each night I forget your body

a little more.  Anyone's body lessens the distance.
This fevered useless singing.  On edge
tonight, past sleeping, I remember.  The silence
turns in, cutting.