The Soul Floats at the End of Its Shell

i.

I held my father’s hand as he died.

The hospice nurse traced the blue under his nails

the way they said in the pamphlet

with the ship sailing off the cover.

Seawater rushes in one ear, out the other.

Two days later a dog came up

to me and my friend on the beach.

His nose brushed my leg.

Tall enough to pet without bending.

Still I continued talking

pulling the thread of some story I’d started.

He didn’t seem to belong to anyone.

No one called him to them.

He stood panting, then took off into the spray.

 

ii.

Motor catching, turning over.

Not what you think but what happens when you let go of thinking.

 

iii.

If I had not wandered, could I be comforted,

had I not ventured into the rain

then asked to come in?

To coax myself into sleep

I’ve imagined love I’ve gathered

as heat in the centre of my body.

Waking, stepped as if from a perfumed bath

fogging mirrors.

 

iv.

If the ball could be a body

soul what the pitcher lays on it

fingers splayed across the seam.

Wherever you look, it’s somewhere else.

Our design unfolds,

bolt of cloth we weave and unweave.

Sometimes to remove the flaw,

sometimes to incorporate it.