Index of Goodbyes
1.
Routine
makes the violence of monotony
duller: clean the living room, study,
empty the dryer
watch your favourite movies
she never enjoyed.
Take care—the paired words
ring out—
be good
2.
Our parents
never met each other.
We had been mistaken for siblings
before
by strangers, old mutual acquaintances
who never took us
for affectionate types.
Long distance
is the impossible phrase:
the leg span of John Wayne
times infinity.
3.
In some instances
cigarettes & facial tissues
should cost nothing, king-sized
(leave a pack
by the phone.)
During the birth of our first,
my front wheel drive got stuck
in a snow bank. Digging out
took nearly twenty minutes.
By the time I made it back
to the maternity wing,
extended family had beat me,
turned me into some dirt bag, some
hereafter. Why I had gone & returned
in the first place: the vapour
fed through our newborn’s
tube.
4.
We lived a dialogue
of rhetorical questions:
if you can fall in love
with more than one person in a lifetime,
why not simultaneously?
What if we’d never met
or only lasted six months
like we thought at first?
5.
The last thing she said
was thank-you.
I could not control
the kettle in my chest.
Frequency
does not always transmit
into comfort. Familiar guilt
boiling over.
6.
So long is only apt
minus context. Innocence
unachievable
without a debilitating share
of repression, pure
original sin
no prescription can revoke.
7.
Another list
of what I miss about her;
my catholic source text
my little cipher.
