Goyette - outskirts

OUTSKIRTS

outskirts

Sue Goyette

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Goyette, Sue
Outskirts / Sue Goyette.

Poems.

ISBN 978-1-926829-68-5

I. Title.

PS8563.O934O98 2010 C811.54 C2010-907674-5

Copyright Sue Goyette 2011

We acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada Pantone version through the Canada Book Fund, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program.

The cover image is a painting by Laura Dawe.

The author photograph was taken by Robyn Murphy.

Brick Books
Box 20081
431 Boler Road
London, Ontario
N6K 4G6
Canada

www.brickbooks.ca

CONTENTS

The boy moves like a long-necked creature, a horse or a giraffe. With the same arc ofreach, a gracious hunger, he lunges in front of my car impervious to its heft. His bodyis wily and wired for adventure though the soft skin of him still nuzzles the woolenmammal of family. His father, a force across the street, watches. We are in a globetheatre rehearsing tragedy. There are no lines. We are poised to remember each otherfor an eternity of remorse.

Forgive this enterprise of engine and fuel. Forgive its pads and pedals. The beast in myhands has escaped and gone feral. Listen to me blame the weather with its curdled cloudsand tidal surge. Listen to me say you came out of nowhere. Are you the child chosen todraw satellites raking their slow trench across the heavens? Are you the child chosento draw water into jugs for the thirsty tribe? Or do you simply draw the level of videogame that is the present challenge? The toadstools and the capes, the crooked mountainsand the secret keys? Werent you chosen to be treasure?

Later, I will drive through the town of Economy and think of the way you looked atme in that second. The joy of seeing your father slurred with sudden panic. But only inyour eyes and only for that moment. Immediately it wavered and delight moved backin. And such a force of delight, how it spread, the opposite of shadow, its hands on theheavy back of time, pushing it, shoving it still to let you squeeze by.

by the smell of my sons old room, the battle fume between Peacho the hamster

and Lego pirates. The vapour of their souls entwined in a kind of territorial

clash of cedar shavings and carpet. The mist of neglected math books,

the algebra of disregard and doodle. And the common denominator: socks.

Rolled up sneaker sweat, the grub of toes. Underwear everywhere. And socks.

I miss the poster of the phases of the moon hanging over his pillow

like thought bubbles in the graphic novel he narrated, the waning moon

of high school. The inevitable bong, that lava light of bright ideas

and the munchies, then the long moon of a new silence.

How else can they leave, our boys, but slowly?

His hand on the small of some girls back, behind him the ruins

of dirty plates caught in a late-night computer search for other life forms

and the iPod he left plugged in, a vein of song recharging.

Hed come home to eat, stand at the fridge and graze.

And graze. Often wed pass each other in the morning, me waking,

him a walking ad for the somniferous. Hi, Id say. Oh, yeah, hed reply.

And Id miss the boy then who coloured drawings of his stories

with blue that actually matched the inside fruit of the colour.

His enthusiastic grade one I love chicks how he meant it, literally,

a plump exuberance of pale yellow feathers perched on top

of his exclamation mark. This is where Id linger, not wanting to go

into my morning yet, the kettles inevitable boil and outside,

at the feeder, starlings trying to bully the treasured birds away.

You mention your daughter. How she left for university. You may have said more.

Someone at the far end of the table is talking politics and doesnt notice. Someone

opens more wine, bread is cut. Two of us put down our forks. This kind of silence

stops chewing and stands on its hind legs to peer into our forests. Its heard something

move. Arrested, it stops breathing. It will moult any whispering until its fully

fledged. We are listening. We lean toward your daughter and her suitcases,

her backpack with its please and thank yous of Canadian flags sewn on the flap.

We lean forward as if shes our daughter and theres a recital of daughters,

a lark of girls whove returned from their travels to sit now between us. And we lean

in towards you. A triad of mothers still sometimes waiting at the window. Who knew

it would all go so fast? Our girls and their pirouette of news, the best friends, the cute

boys; oh, the different weather system of moods and the winds that matched each

of them. You are swallowing the decades of her and cannot speak. Neither can I.

This is how they return, in the middle of a conversation, pieces of soft wood smoking

and, if we wait long enough, catching and burning in our throats. Theres a new silence

then, that begins, again, to breathe. Its ears perked but its head lowered. The long

grasses around it are still and sifting the sounds of the city. We pick up our forks, our

eyes brimming, and reach for the platters, accept the bowls being offered.

I want to tell all the long bearded boys that I have a boy just like them. I have a boyand I imagine he too turns dance floors into a ricochet of minimum wage and dumpsterdiving, demolition derby in the size of a parking space shadowed by condos of parentsand student loans, Superstore aprons and vibrating cellphones. I have a boy who dances.I want to tell the girls wearing black leather chaps with matching bras, poised to shove,to check and boulder, that I have a girl and though she closes her eyes when she twirls,Ive seen her avalanche. The mosh pit is a boil of bodies and the singer is sliding downthe banister of his voice, sending the screech of his descent directly into the mic as ifits a combination of girlfriend and government. I feel old. The floor is hard, the sneerssideways. When the singer falls back, his eyes closed, his hands holding the bird, theshark, the satellite at bay in his chest, all their hands reach up and carry him aloft likea gift or an offering. This is what Im supposed to watch. I didnt know how it wouldhappen, just that it would. My boy, my girl; a dance carried. And then gone.

The floor is wide-plank pine. The day is waning. The girl sits before her mother andrecites a memorized poem. Outside, the mother cant help noticing the chickadees.Theyre smaller than the maples leaves, bigger than the cherrys. The piano is silenced,the mourners have come. Outside the wind picks up like a muffled drum. She watches