Vol. 13 No. 1 Volume 13 Issue 1 New Dress Against Disease Guylaine Couture

This artist book shows the link between women’s cancer and various ways to help them. Six women have six different cancers. They are next to six dresses that can help and perhaps protect them: art therapy, phi - losophy, economics, technology, et cetera. The research is multidisciplinary, and it in - volves what the patient and the team around her must face. The piece is made of two books intertwined, to show the relationship between women and science.

Guylaine Couture lives in Montréal, speaks French, teaches graphic

design, and shares her discoveries on her blog. each book attempts to create a fusion between the contents and the container while ques - tioning the manipulation of the object by the reader. Browsing slowly through any of the artists’ books is an experience, a conversation, a relationship with her and her concerns. Guylaine has participated in exhibitions in Canada, the United States, europe, and Australia. Website: www. gycouture.com

We are grateful for the generous ﬁnancial assistance of the Departments of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, and to the Munk School of Global Affairs. Published in partnership with CISP Press, Simon Fraser University.

For subscription information or to submit a manuscript, contact [email protected] or visit: http://ars-medica.ca

ISSN 1910-2070

B S M P S L M j j S S A r S l A r A r P T A E r A F V A . o a t u t a o u i a r e i d T a f l l d o e o o a u e o s c r l i l r r a a a g z y u b x i . r v i a i a r n b b n a k d a t H e r r s s s r a l o l n

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Contents Volume 13, Number 1

eDITorIAl The Sur/real of Dis/order Allison Crawford 1 –6

FeATUre PIeCeS Gnarly Hearts by Martin Edward Springett 7 – 39

The Mind Sees Many by Brandon Michael Muncan 52 – 53 Farinata After the Flood by Garry Thomas Morse 119 – 128

ProSe Downsizing by Gordon Sun 40 – 51 Herbert Safﬁr, Measurer of Hurricanes by Mary Hutchings Reed 56 – 62 More than Skin Deep by Saber Shaikh 63 – 66 on Sleeping In by Julie Hein 97 – 98 long life! by Ann Starr 105 – 117

PoeTry

The First Shadows of Dementia by Alan Steinberg 54 – 55 The Come from Away / Stitching Simon Strugnell / eighth Day / Sounding / The Men Who Dug by Lois Leveen 67 – 72 South Granville, Saturday evening / In the year of the rooster / Hiking in the Forest / Father Knows Why / To Be Continued: A Portrait of a Poet Getting Newly old by Changming Yuan 99 – 103 Volume 13 Issue 1

Crow / Francis Bacon’s / The Blind Birdwater / Don’t Bend over / Dornen / Fun And Games / What’s left / Bindi / The Second Coming / Inimates by Crystal Hope Hurdle 73 – 96 Blue johnnies by Jennifer Markell 104 Transplant Surgery by Rebekka DePew 118

V o I l s u s 1 u m e e

I a r t e i d D a w m o f I i t i h n w p t c e t e n n n n t h r h o o u n a n x n s i n o o r

o o o a i g s

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c r p e d c p d s ” w p t t a h o e m k

e , m , m a s e

h I e t

b d

p e m r e

s r n e r a a d l e — p h a r i h

f e l e e o o

l d e p d

s n d

s i i s s u t p r i b v n s n u G s e f

d l e c c h r

o o d u e i l l

f o e l t n v

’ m r h o i , s y

u e s e e d n o u w f .

l e r

ﬁ l i l s c ,

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n , n

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l n

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s e r R n s a q r a t u d p E t t s

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e h

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) n /

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r i o e O

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g t o e r r s l ,

e m

f h t o r

r d o k o e f t e e e

h m r a e a r f h c i n d g v . w r s

t s t u n d n e

a a s a n i n h s e

i i W a

y c i s n r i c e t o

n e t t

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n , e u r

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u i f

a n t n h

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o r r n h c g t t m r

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n i

e e t o c e a l r r e y , e e d n a e o

a t s , w h m a

d o r t r w n

c b

i i h

g e i e t o

y a g i v s

i a l r

n u m

t l s e m - l d

c r f

n m e a t e l d l t i m f

s o t a

e h l i i n

l t

o n d u i

h d p i r l k i c l n f o e l c e d n e n i n t e r d

s l

o l n n d “ a t

h s n s m i o i d t - e g e , s o h n s i t o n d t - s e v

x x - - — r s d e e i s w - l s e y n - e r s s r - - - . Couture’s cutouts also call to mind the scissors and collage so important to surrealism. From the 1920s, surrealism was associated with artists and writers such as Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, robert Desnos, Max ernst and Salvador Dalí. The movement is often understood as a response to the bodily and psychic trauma of WWI and to the in - creasingly mechanistic reduction of modernization. The surrealists’ adventures into the psyche, and into territories of dreams, desire and the uncon - scious, released objects from everyday life, and repositioned them in unexpected combinations and juxtapositions. Surrealist art practices often

cut and tore things apart and recombined them in ways that were startling, raw, and transgressive. According to Breton, the aim of surrealism was to,

resolve “ two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality ” (Breton, 1924). Very little has been written about the relation of surrealism to the medical and health humanities. Many facets of surrealist practice and representa -

tion offer potentialities for new expressions of the body that are in excess of linear language and rea - son. Despite major critique of surrealism by femi - nists, who cite the dominance of male artists and the tendency to use the female as muse and the fe - male body to fragment, dissect and reassemble (such as in the collages of Max ernst and Hans Bellmer), Whitney Chadwick (2017) observes that many women surrealist artists resisted this idea of passive muse. And later, female artists built upon and re-appropriated surrealist techniques, tech -

2 niques that resonate within Guylaine Couture’s collage book art, and which allow her to imagine alternatives to the female body struggling with cancer. Martin edward Springett’s Gnarly Hearts uses the form of the comic book to document his expe - rience of cardiac surgery. Comics also evokes childhood, as he recounts, “instinctively … creat - ing a ‘comic book’; a form of visual storytelling that I have loved ever since I was a child.” This form allows him to put a “frame around what would otherwise be a roiling sea of emotions.” The majority of the pages of this visual narrative con -

tain few words, seemingly depicting nonlinear tem - poral sequences and multiple subjectivities and vantages. The images offer a lyrical story out of

the author’s fragmented visions, turning delirium into the magical as patients and hospital equip - ment are relocated to natural settings, and as vines twine themselves along hospital corridors and beds. Brandon Michael Muncan uses pop art in his

The Mind Sees Many , reproducing and manipulat - ing a CT image of the brain to create tension be - tween similarity and individuality; the disembodied and familiar outlines of the brain conceal the individual and lived realities of pa - tients struggling with the personal meanings of their diagnoses and illness. Muncan’s artistic mode of reproduction confronts us with a vision of the dehumanizing aspects of technology within medicine.

3 In her series of poems, Crystal Hope Hurdle uses language to simultaneously evoke and disturb vision, which accompanies the narrator’s recovery from eye surgery. Through her poems, which range from ekphrastic readings of the paintings of Francis Bacon, to engaging with poems by Ted Hughes, and Sylvia Plath, “the eye eye eye be - comes its own hot dark panting muse.” From his collection Yams Do Not Exist, Garry Thomas Morse’s “Farinata After the Flood” ven - tures into mental order/disorder, an area too infre - quently explored in Ars Medica . Morse, who has been described as a poet of prairie surrealism, de -

picts Farinata struggling to maintain mental com - posure and stability, using the vast and open prairie landscape to anchor himself and avert “an -

other mood coming on.” As Farinata contemplates the landscape, he alludes to Saskatchewan born ab - stract painter Agnes Martin “who had striven so hard—all her life in fact—to think of nothing,” even as he wards off his own thoughts that “br[ing] back the trauma … like some unidentiﬁed

but almost fathomable speck on the horizon that was approaching at top speed.” Morse’s syncretic style deﬁes this attempt to “turn the mind to anti-matters,” drawing in Farinata degli Uberti, who appears in Dante’s Inferno; musing over his own misquotation of symbolist poet Arthur rimbaud’s “tout se ﬁt ombre et aquarium ardent”; and Cecilia Bartoli’s rendition of Vivaldi’s Cessate, omai cessate . Vivaldi’s words, not included in Morse’s story, sug - gest an intriguing intertextual subplot to Farinata’s

4 wish to blot out the trauma of memory and achieve a quiet mind: Cease, henceforth cease, cruel memories of despotic love; heartless and pitiless, you have turned my happiness into immense sorrow. cease, henceforth cease to tear my breast, to pierce my soul, to rob my heart of peace and calm.

As Farinata struggles to quiet the mind, and to steel it against the piercing of memory, Morse’s narrative erupts with the language of neuroscience, proliferating in this already ﬂooded space:

neuronal production … sudden glut of neural data in terms of image, sensa - tion, and mood. … the rough-and-tum - ble a posteriori arose from the imbalance of glutamate promoting irri -

tability, to dip our beaks even deeper in the elemental chemistry of Farinata’s is - sues, postulating in step with the school of thought that dopamine agonists have a starring role in precipitating mania …

These very different contributions, by couture, Springett, Muncun, Hurdle, and Morse, each demonstrate the power of narrative and visual in - coherence to convey psychic and corporeal trauma.

5 Through the imagination, however, these frag - ments are stitched together in a way that at once retains the stice , or puncture, and the reparative thread that sutures the wound, retaining the ten - sion between fragmentation and wholeness, mean - ing and lack of meaning, certainty and uncertainty. As Springett writes, “the blow to the body caused by” his surgery leaves a residual anxiety that he “would ﬂy apart.” This anxiety of disintegration is tempered by the “imagination … a refuge to soften the blows of the world.” Ultimately, even as these works represent blows to the body and psychic ruptures, they grasp at and cling to imagination and creativity. This power of the imagi - nation in the face of illness is boldly celebrated through the other contributions to this issue: in the

prose of Gordon Sun, Mary Hutchings Reed, Saher Shaikh, Julie Hein, and Ann Starr; and the poetry of Alan Steinberg, Louis Leveen, Changming Yuan, Jennifer Markell, and Rebekka DePew.

References

Breton, André. 1924. Manifesto of Surrealism. Url: www.tcf.ua.edu

/Classes/jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoofSurrealism.htm [june 25, 2018]. Chadwick, Whitney. 2017. Militant Muse . New york, Ny: Thames &

Hudson. juler, e. (2016). Man’s Dark Interior: Surrealism, Viscera and the Anatomical Imaginary. In A.Whitehead, A.Woods, S. Atkinson, j. Macnaughton, j. richards (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities . edinburgh, U.K. edinburgh University Press.

Allison Crawford , editor-in-Chief, Ars Medica

V o I l 2 s u s 0 7 u m 1 e e 8

1 0

1 1

1 2

1 3

1 4

1 5

1 6

1 7

1 8

1 9

2 0

2 1

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2 3

2 4

2 5

2 6

2 7

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3 0

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3 2

3 3

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3 5

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3 7

3 8

3 9

V o I l 2 s u s 4 0 u m 0 1 e e 8

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- h - e y e n n t c i , r g n h n l k g stickers, accompanied by an even younger blond kid wearing navy blue scrubs. “ Hola, señor ,” the guy in the wheelchair said, smiling. he was wear - ing a grey hoodie and sweatpants stamped with a local college logo. I wondered brieﬂy if he used to be an athlete. The kid in the scrubs sat down in an empty plastic chair and began toying with his phone, ignoring us. “hey, there,” I replied, taking out my earbuds. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around before.” Wheelchair guy was examining my chair. he also had a trach tube, but his had a red cap on it. I used a green device on mine, what the speech ther - apists called a “speaking valve.” “Primera vez aquí ,” he said. “Very exciting.” “good for you,” I replied. The guy was looking closely at me now. “Why you here?” Was it not obvious? “This ol’ pain in the neck.”

“¿Qué dijo? ” The guy looked puzzled.

“This pain in my neck. The trach,” I repeated a bit more loudly, pointing to the tracheostomy.

“El tubito, sí ,” the guy said, nodding. “ Yo tam -

bién. Espero que van a quitarlo. ” “What?” “Sorry. I…I hope they take out el tubito ,” he said. “ Con permiso. ” The man hit a switch by his left hand, gradually tilting back in his power chair until his white-and-red sneakers dangled higher than his head. Time for pressure relief. We paused for a moment as he settled into his new position. Then, feeling a little guilty, I spoke up. “Buddy, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

42 “What’s happening?” “They won’t take out your trach,” I said, point - ing at the guy’s neck. “how you know?” “I’ve been coming here for a long time and seen a lot of people. Almost no one ever gets it taken out.” “¿De verdad? ” “I know for sure. The docs have been here for years. No, decades. Things don’t change.” I nodded in the direction of the blond kid in scrubs, who was swiping away on his phone, totally oblivious. “Is he your caretaker?” “Es el enfermero. Se llama Chris. ” “You know that if you don’t have a trach, they’ll probably take away a lot of your home health hours,” I said, lowering my voice to a whis - per. “Think about it. They aren’t gonna pay for chris to watch you twelve hours a day just to

ﬂush a g-tube and check your foley.”

“foley?” “Yeah. It’s that tube they put in your… uh,

down there.” I pointed to his crotch.

he glanced down, then nodded in understand - ing. “ Comprendo ahora, ” he said. “ El otro tubito. ” “Sorry, buddy.” I shrugged. “how about you?” he asked. “You want el tubito out?” “The trach? Maybe someday.” I exhaled deeply. honestly, I didn’t like talking about that too much. Still, the kid seemed nice enough, and I wasn’t sure how much of my conversation he understood any - way. “They say I could get sick if they take it out,

43 so I told them to just leave it in. lung infection’s not worth it.” “Se suponía que iban a quitar el tubito antes de salir del hospital, pero los médicos no estaban disponibles ,” the guy replied. “uh, english, por favor ,” I said. I know maybe ten words in Spanglish. “Lo siento …ah, supposed to take out el tubito in hospital. But doctors not there,” the man continued. “Not there? What do you mean?” “Told me no doctors available to take out el tubito .” “really?” I asked. “how long were you in the hospital?” “Tres o cuatro semanas aquí. Three, four weeks. I leave hospital last week.” “There’s always a doc here. Doctor grayson never takes a vacation.” I was genuinely curious. “You know what happened?”

“No sé, señor. ” he twitched his shoulders.

We didn’t say anything for a while. eventually chris got up, glanced around, and went to the reg -

istration desk. “Where’s the bathroom?” he asked.

“uh, down the hall. The one here’s being re - modeled,” I heard Dana reply. “cool, thanks.” chris hastily returned to our corner. “ Mateo, necesito ir al baño. ¿Va a estar bien por sí mismo? ” “Sí, por supuesto, ” Mateo said. “Un momento. ” chris walked quickly out the waiting room. I nodded and grinned, trying to resume the con - versation. “So I take it you’re Mateo? I’m Johnny.”

44 “Mucho gusto. ” Mateo smiled pleasantly. “Nice to meet you.” But before I could con - tinue, Dana poked her head out the registration window and called out, “Johnny!” “Yeah?” I yelled back from the corner of the room. “Doctor’s ready!” “Thanks .” I powered on my wheelchair. “See you around, Mateo. And good luck.” I meant it. “Hasta luego, ” said Mateo. I pressed forward on the joystick, rolling swiftly toward the registration ofﬁce. Suddenly, the ofﬁce door opened and Dana appeared. I screeched to a halt. “holy crap, you scared me!” I blurted out. “Sorry, dear. You mind if I go in with you?” she asked. That’s strange. The nurse never comes in the room. The docs did everything. “Sure, I guess.” I followed Dana as she led me past registration into

one of the exam rooms. I never liked the rooms;

they were too small for people in wheelchairs. They probably were built in a time before people

cared about patient feedback.

A guy in a white coat was already in the room, staring at something on a portable computer workstation. he swiveled around on his stool to face me as Dana and I entered. The guy was young, tall, and muscular with light brown eyes and crew cut. he wore a starched white shirt with a tightly knotted striped red-and-blue tie and matching brown khakis and loafers. The guy ad - justed a pair of thin, wiry glasses on the bridge of his nose as he sized me up.

45 Dana spoke ﬁrst, somewhat excitedly. “Johnny, this is Doctor phillips. he’s our new lung doctor. he just started in July, a month or so ago. he’s even volunteered to train me to assist with these tracheostomy changes, so that’s why I’m in the room now.” She turned away and began opening the cabinets, assembling the equipment for the tra - cheostomy change. Now that was a surprise. “hey, doc,” I said. “No offense, but…where are Doctor Martinez and Doctor grayson? Why can’t I see them instead?” This new guy was probably young enough to be their grandson. “Oh, they don’t work here anymore,” Doctor phillips answered vaguely. he spun toward the monitor quickly, pointing at something on the monitor and muttering to himself. What the heck? I was shocked. “They never said they were planning to leave,” I said, stumbling

a little on the words.

“I think it was a bit sudden,” Doctor phillips agreed, turning away from the computer and look -

ing at me. “Anyway, as Dana said, I’m Doctor

ron phillips, and I’ll be taking care of you from now on.” I was quiet for a while, trying to digest the news. Dana ﬁnished laying out the new trach tube, lubricant, and gauze on a clean towel and stood off to one side, silently watching us. “Then, you’re in charge now, doc?” I ﬁnally asked. “That is correct, Johnny.” I snorted. “Don’t take this the wrong way, doc, but you seem kind of young to be taking over.”

46 A grim expression, with maybe a hint of melan - choly, ﬂitted over Doctor phillips’ face, but he re - covered quickly. “Is that so?” he said slowly. “I hear that a lot. regardless, it does not change the fact that I am the new chief of pulmonary Medicine at this hospital.” he reached out pur - posefully and grasped my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” So Doctor Martinez and Doctor grayson were really gone. That was a big change. Doctor phillips was looking closely at me, probably analyzing my reaction. If he knew why the other docs left, he wasn’t saying. But maybe he really didn’t know what was up. Or maybe he did - n’t want to gossip. either way, I realized that I was probably being a little hard on the guy. It’s not like I had anything to gain by pissing off the new doc. “Okay, then,” I replied. “So I take it you’ve probably read my ﬁle

and know why I’m here. I’ve got some soreness

here in my neck.” “Your trach site? Sure,” he replied, almost casu -

ally. “But let’s not rush things. I have some ques -

tions for you ﬁrst.” “Questions? Okay, let’s hear ’em.” Doctor phillips cleared his throat. “I was look - ing at your chart just now, and I was trying to ﬁg - ure out why you still have that tube in your neck.” “excuse me?” has anyone ever asked me that question? I can’t remember. “let’s start from the beginning. The chart says your spinal cord injury is c-seven, incomplete,” he continued. “Is that right?”

47 “Yep.” “And you’re not having trouble swallowing or anything like that? You eat by mouth?” “Sure do, I eat fine. lots of tacos and pizza. probably more than I should.” I grinned. “They took out the g-tube a long time ago.” “We can discuss your dietary choices later,” he said. We both laughed. “have you been hospital - ized in the last year or two? pneumonia, anything like that?” “Nope.” I was pretty proud of that fact, actu - ally. I’ve had my fill of hospitals, having spent the first three or four months after my accident in one or another. “At least not since my initial injury.” Doctor phillips nodded encouragingly. “Do you use a ventilator at home?” “heck no. I hate that damn machine.” I was a little surprised to hear the words escaping my mouth. “I hardly even need to suction. like once

every couple of months or so.”

“huh. That’s interesting.” The doctor tilted his head. “have you had any recent surgery? Do you

have any surgery coming up?”

“Nope.” “great. Then let’s see how strong your lungs are. please go ahead and cough as hard as you can for me.” he leaned forward on his stool, his hands folded under his stubbled chin. I clenched my neck and chest muscles like the therapists taught me and forced out a dry cough. I thought it sounded so-so at best. Doctor phillips frowned. “That’s pretty good. Quite good, actually.” he picked up a red-capped

48 tube that Dana had set out on the countertop and held it out in his ﬁngertips. “have you ever used a red plug? like this one?” “Sure, once or twice,” I replied, wondering where he was headed with this conversation. No way he’s thinking of taking the trach out. I added, “Doctor grayson said before that my cough wasn’t that good. he told me that I should use the green speaking valve instead of that red cap. So I use the speaking valve all the time.” “Is that right.” It came out more like a statement than a question. Doctor phillips set the red tube down. “And you don’t smoke or drink alcohol?” “No way. Bastard who ran me over was drunk driving.” Surprised myself again. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to open up a bit to the new doc. can’t blame him for not knowing about my history yet, like Doctor Martinez or Doctor grayson. “Alright. let me look at your neck. Don’t

worry, I’ll change out your trach also.” I cleared

my throat and exposed the trach. Doctor phillips swiftly pulled out the old tube and pointed out

that I had some granulation tissue around the

trach that was probably the cause of the soreness in my neck. After cauterizing the granulation with one of those silver nitrate sticks, he lubricated a new trach and replaced it in my neck. I reflexively coughed a bit when he put the thing in; I noticed Doctor phillips nodding to himself. Without delay, Dana expertly slid a new split gauze sponge under - neath the trach. The entire process took less than a minute. The doc was efficient, no question about it: definitely

49 faster than either Doctor Martinez or Doctor grayson. Doctor phillips pulled off his blue gloves with a loud snap and tossed them in a trash bin, while Dana began cleaning up the trash left over from the trach change. “like I mentioned before,” Doctor phillips began slowly, leaning back on his stool, “I don’t know why you still have that trach tube.” That’s the second time he brought that up. “Sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. It sounded like you’re saying that you want to take this trach out.” “That’s right,” he said, more assertively now. “It needs to come out. I don’t have a good reason why you need it at this point.” I blinked in astonishment. “hold on a sec. You really do want to take it out?” “Yes, I do.” he raised his eyebrows slightly. “In

fact, you’re probably at higher risk of complica -

tions from leaving the trach in unnecessarily. Scarring of the windpipe, skin infections, bleed -

ing—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted him. “I’ve had this damn dog collar around my neck for ten years, and Doctor Martinez and Doctor grayson kept telling me all this time that I needed it. And they’re experts. Now all of a sudden you’re saying I don’t?” “Well, not right away, Johnny,” he said, putting his hands up in what looked like some kind of ap - peasing gesture. “I’d probably downsize the trach ﬁrst. You know, get you a smaller size tube. We

50 might have to do one or two quick tests also, but nothing that would require anesthesia. But yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You don’t need that trach. period.” I sank back in my wheelchair, stunned. “heck… is that even possible?” I managed to say. “The other docs wouldn’t ever consider it. And they had good reasons. At least I thought they did.” “The other doctors were good people and had their way of doing things,” Doctor phillips said, with the barest hint of a smile. “This is my way.” I stared down at the ﬂoor. This changed every - thing. I wondered just how much Mateo had heard about the new doc during the last few weeks. “gotta say, doc, this wasn’t what I ex - pected. I come here every month, and it’s always the same old, same old.” Doctor phillips leaned forward on his stool, straightening his glasses and folding his hands to -

gether. “Well, then. Are you ready for change?”

Gordon Sun is an otolaryngologist. he enjoys writing short ﬁction and listening to electronic music. email: gordon.h.Sun @gmail.com

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s r r o v l f

e a u k h f

t o a o . i h o m a e

n a y e s

e h u n c t a t e a t o t T o w

m v e o n s a r

n h h

h n y a g d u t l s

r y n e h m t s o d e - o a e t h e o

t e s t i e d t s t r - n - t John was not naïve about her memory loss, al - though he thought it had come on quickly. looking back, he saw that for several years she’d outsmarted the disease and her family, laughing off lapses of memory as the price for living to eighty. “Gotta forget some things so i’ll have room for the years to come,” she’d say gamely. She’d stayed active, too. After his father had died seven years ago, every Sunday in the summer he and his wife and three kids would go to her house on little Green lake and while they swam and kayaked and sailed the dinghy he kept there, he would take his mother for nine holes of leisurely afternoon golf. She was pretty good— “for an old lady,” she would say—and she could both correct his swing and encourage him with the same intelligence and love that had gotten him through schools at the top of his class, all the way

to his phD in education. one of the last times they

played together last the previous summer, she’d lined up a six foot putt and then swung her putter

like a drive, digging an unforgivable three inch

divot in the green. John had been horriﬁed, but his mother calmly replaced the torn grass, stamping it down to repair it. John had tucked that incident away, not connecting it to the hints he’d often found in the kitchen: a baking sheet with hard bis - cuits browned the day before in preparation for his family’s arrival; a plate of packaged cookies wrapped in plastic with a slip of paper, “pecan Cookies Made With real Butter;” a note on the microwave, “100=power=on,” which John ﬁnally

58 recognized as his mother’s method of cooking one minute at a time, avoiding the complexity of time and power options on the control panel. There were few men in his mother’s facility. “Did Herbert live here?” he braved again. He didn’t particularly want to talk about death with his mother, but any coherent conversation, how - ever brief, whatever the topic, would be a great im - provement over their past visits, when her response to the simplest “How are you today?” was often, “oh, yes.” His mother turned to him, as if the sound of his voice reminded her that he was there. She nodded and smiled. Herbert’s passing didn’t seem to have registered as “sad” in his mother’s lost vocabulary. “That’s too bad,” John said, keeping his voice low, “but i’m sure he is at peace.” He glanced around, hoping none of the other residents had heard him, for fear of starting a general keening.

He smiled to himself that it would again be news

to many that Herbert had passed—if they remem - bered Herbert at all.

He changed the subject. “My youngest daugh -

ter Jenny won her swim meet.” He’d gotten used to the need to identify himself and the members of his family. “South Korea confirms bird flu outbreak,” his mother said, and John finally understood: his mother was reading the headlines from the news - paper open on her lap. November 24, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Although the man was important enough to make the front page of the Tribune , John had never

59 heard of “Herbert Safﬁr, Measurer of Hurricanes.” Must be a slow news day, he thought. His mother studied his face, and he met her gaze with his own, balling his left hand into a tight ﬁst. Neither of them could comprehend the other’s incomprehension, John thought. He wasn’t even certain that she recognized him, her only son. She turned her attention back to the newspaper. “Structural engineer created 5 category system used for C-l-A-S-S-i-f-i-C-A-T-i-o-N of storm strength,” she read, spelling out the longest word. She looked up at him, her eyebrows raised, her green eyes glistening. That she didn’t wear glasses, that she could still read, that she could still recog - nize words that had no meaning for her, was some - thing. He smiled back and then gently took the newspaper from her, “May i?” Still holding his other hand, she let the newspaper slide from her lap as if she’d forgotten it was even there.

John scanned the story. Safﬁr had died of a heart

attack in a South Miami Hospital. in the 1960s, under a commission from the united Nations, he’d

created the “Category” scale that describes the

strength of hurricanes. The scale was intended to measure the structural damage that the winds of each Category storm could create, and it had later been modified by a guy named Simpson to measure tidal surge, storm surge, and possible flooding. A colleague at the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County was quoted in Saffir’s obit - uary as saying he was “just such a nice, sweet man.” A nice, sweet man with a front page obituary, not because he was sweet, but because he “cre -

60 ated” a scale, not unlike the earthquake scale, and topped it off at 5. Why not 6 or 10 or 100? Katrina, rita, Wilma, all those hurricanes from a few years ago, all Category 5, according to the ar - ticle. John had been to the Gulf Coast with a group of rotarians; he’d seen buildings splintered and swept away. He’d seen the remnants of lives heaped eight feet high and bulldozed into piles awaiting removal; lives totally wiped out. He’d seen the trailers, he’d seen nice homes abandoned, he’d seen blue tarp roofs and schools and hospitals closed. And he’d seen faces. Clerks in stores smil - ing forced smiles, their shoulders rounded, their eyes dull. John looked up from the story, and saw that his mother was asleep, but still holding his right hand. Some friends’ parents had heart attacks, some were eaten away with cancer and comforted with morphine, some failed to see the red light or

the oncoming truck and left without a chance to

say good-bye. A caregiver came by and asked how he was.

“i’m sorry you have to work the Thanksgiving hol -

iday,” he said. “oh, i love working holidays,” she said. “And Christmas, too! You know they ask me twenty times a day what day it is, and on Christmas i tell them and they light up, ‘oh, Christmas!’ each time! it was like that Thursday, too.” John laughed heartily and turned to his mother’s sleeping proﬁle, his eyes ﬁlling. “let me know if you need anything,” the care - giver said.

61 You had to have that kind of attitude to work in such a place, John thought. To act as if plastic beads were white gold and The Sound of Music your wedding song. To ignore the structural dam - age, to love in the moment, knowing there might be a hurricane, destruction yet to come. His mother opened her eyes but didn’t notice him. He put the newspaper back on her lap. Without looking at him, she read, “Herbert Safﬁr,” and started to spell, “M-e-A-S-u-r-e-r …” John put his arm around her. “of Hurricanes,” he said out loud.

Mary Hutchings Reed is a Chicago novelist and retired lawyer whose mother, a librar - ian, suffered from Alzheimer’s. email: [email protected] . www.maryhutch - ingsreed.com

V o I l 2 s u s 6 0 u m 3 1 e e 8

b s w m I T h i e a a W s t c c d r ﬁ T n s

i i i o a l o

n o a i n e d a h h o

t a h n e s s h u h t n w n d l d g e e i e n a

e i e a

m W o g t i t v n d

r f y p , n

a m t o r w d o h

e r s w e e g

l o l p s e

o — o t e

e h l r

t e

i o r w h o l m

e c

r h o

t k f a

l I e s b a m h a m i t o p b i

b e n

e t s r o

n w

a r a f

u e u

s s r c m e

e i a r w a i s r g

k m

d e t u c g t s a t o t e s a t n

i h i a t o

a h o l s

c t a m m n r n n y e u c a i h m

i s h l a t l s n c o

i e d

n l r r o

e n

o o b n c a

a o

i d e

g o

M g o t u t z e n n d e t n i e l s

f h

o a t r n i e a e t d f m l p

o t a e g c s o h b o

m e c r o d h r

ﬁ s t l e e r h f . m

t m d a e l u

i r

i s e c d u n y o e d i B s d S a n

u s a n z y n a t

i o i i r r a n e

u g

t s n s e n t d c e

t s i c y e i f , h h e k h

t d m e h s v

, g

u e n w o

e m e r e r d s i a s

e a t

r h n r n r a o a a e i

r i p h n

r n t e s o n

o i y

n l t t

c . t s

a r e g e h d S i . a o h

f h

w p h i

o e e l S r s t m t

h a t s s B l

e i f c t h e e

w o r y k s m

. a n p a o , r h u

t a

m a

i O s

b w a i g e w e w n b e

n t y t

. k

. f

n n

b o

e u

e n S o o w i s m h h I t l D t l g e i

a t r k s

o i e

r f r l h i e h g c u f e i a n

e e

o e e

i e m n t e a o m h i i

n d d s s l s

i h r e n n m

a s

t g l

a s

o c e

e p I

d i y y h

n r d

n r n o a

t a o c o e

d i e t n i e h o

c m

g n t

m n h n r a r

e s e p P o

i r w p e e g

d r t t a g n n v e e e a p m r

d h u s e

n — e e m n g d a a

t k

a o r

e d s m l h p a

m d t

i m i n o a

u a t o t c e e t s y e i a o h o i i y n h p n i n t d t

b a d s o n t s c a a p

e e d t

s t u n e i a

n o t e d t n . h d o e d m e o

b e n s

c T i . d t h s

t x e d . n r s h e d c a y e

a h s - i s t a b o n e s d i , - y - f - s .

6 4 i c a s e B A l s t c s w h I s t p t t w o c d d o m m s c m i n

h o r h i i u k p a q o o o d k o a f i i n l u l d n i o a y a e g s d e e

l e m i r u m e n r d r e l e t h t l e n g n d r

u a n y

, e n e d

d t

r h W a t . a

s e r d n i u t p n a i a ,

e r t

h l y o t i

t - d

d l e e u I h w l w d l “ n a s n o

l s d s , d t a g l a o

o y r i s

t y e

t e

i s t w s n t e f g t a r

n t , r o h h , a a a

o o o l

h h a a

i d w e

d y f . n o g l w w g g n d a u u e e n o s n k i a

c t r i

: e

m i M r d t k

s r u l n a

t d e l t u a o g n s t a s i n s h c a e T ” u d e m e o n h ﬁ c e l

, i d s ,

l d m d a d m g r

o l w n

d t a y d

h a m

g e n m t

t t b

h e a u e e o

. o

l t t w o o

h g y

? e c e u i n e e n

u b h a

i l s e M s t

a n t a o e

o c o e y o s

. h n u e e a A s h v t a a m l e e t

d d r

u f e

o n s n o A ,

s i e t y e b t

e e c g

y s

e r h s r t “ i p o f s

y c e

d u o m t i

e n t — e a e p t

p s

u b f f w t h e l n o .

s k e o

i p o i b

f r y r a e d a l t e n r d s u

, s y s

l o m o

. h f

e e o

w c w i f t i t o

e y

t h

o c r t

a n s o t o m i t l n r h m h s t e r f t a h

s p o u l p e e a

w r a i

h e d e f h n s

c i e a m t s o o e , m t p e l o n n t n o l

y c l s s i u

e e . e

n i m n s i m n n n c s

s w o

u o r

d s g t , c y d

s A ,

i y d . h

c e m . s

o e w n — b e m f

y a e

l s h a d m

f i h

I w s b

I o

n s e d

t l

v t t

p l c

i a

a a b y i h a

t u h e

h k n o w l i a c

e o o p s c c a t m g h v r s n l t

n n e a s a o a n

, l k

h e

a a u k h

n a r n a

e j e l

a i n s e n g a t

n u y s u e w

i t n a c n t l s e e c

l a h i

n r t n e h i s t d d l w e h

ﬁ m l . t d n

e e h n r g , t h a

a a d d i g b

m y o

s y a c a B e e s g o h i f y e f g o

m a t t y

. e , n u s u a o t d

r c l i

e h s t w t

n a u

a v n m

m h s , T n o c w e h k n s g s e l r

” r h e t

e d d b , t , u a l a

g t

, ﬁ s h . e i

a a e l a s r

h w a e h n t y t

c s t h y a s r

I g e n o l d n n h h t

w e n

o e i

e g a

t i t s

o e t u w o o w t m s e c d o e e f

n t

m h d o

p h t s . s h y t t p r

r z

n y i s r r

s t

t e

i r c a o k t

r d e e M

i e e i e

a a u

p n e h m . h e

t o h t m s r p s t s n i m

s n p n i

r f a s g n e h w M

s e

a u o n

v ﬁ r y

, a s

a s a g I e a

e p

a g m i n p o e g o t e n f i

a n m n l

r e t ? n “ c y h a n , a o a h w d

e t v h l t g t

s r y

g I a h

, i c g o p a r e o e

A - i o e s

e i n s

a l a n t e o w e a r a

. n n - t i ’ p t d k r e

s . o r i y c

h n d h

t n u I

n d n a . l e e e b a k t f s e e e a t m s e s g d o s e - r - d t - r , - ” hands in different seasons and mediums maybe not consciously felt by others. I was careful to hold the dishwashing sponge with minimal contact to that part, and when winter winds reached my heart, the hand lotion stayed in my purse. I learned to let go of things that were once a life ritual. I miss henna designs the most, a must when eid came. Intricate patterns on both sides on both hands coupled with colourful glass bangles, making soft musical notes when they moved. The application of brown tattoos would sting my af - fected skin. But for many years I tried stubbornly to create designs and worked around the patches, like a maze leading the eye away from a darkened alley until there was not enough landscape to work on. Over time, unused nail polishes dried, and rings sat on the silver platter on the dressing table, gathering dust. less attention to the hands was

better. You couldn’t make something that was

crumbling pretty with accessories. To be a woman with eczema deﬁes the stereotypical concept of a

woman’s body as soft and smooth. Oh, how I

wished at times that gloves would come in vogue, so that I could hide the band aids on the cuts patched on the side of my hand. So that a hand - shake would not be hasty and awkward, all the warmth I wished to convey replaced by the anxi - ety of offering a rough textured hand. The wonder - ing if the other person thought I was a semi-civilized ignorant woman from the east who did not know the purpose of a hand moisturizer. Or worse, their having the fear that it was conta -

65 gious. I swallowed explanation in my mouth, knowing that talking about it would be more awk - ward than letting the moment pass. Bits of our - selves that we allow people to misunderstand because talking about it would take so much emo - tional energy. The barriers we do not remove be - cause social decorum is important, and awkward open conversations that connect us to the mutual current of humanity less so. The acceptance of disease is a difﬁcult inward admission that takes years to seep in, because the person must learn to accept the changed self. Yet denial has a limit to its elasticity and caves in even - tually to skin marks that intensify over time. In a visit to the doctor, I wished there was more to it than, Let’s see your hands and feet. Do you have it anywhere else? —accompanied with in - structions to moisturize more and the ﬁnal rip of the prescription page of the doctors’ pad. I wished

she saw more than my skin, like everyone else at

the ﬁrst glance. There was a neutrality in her tone which was a relief, but she did not see how the

skin covered not just my body but also my identity.

Saher Shaikh is a York university, development Studies graduate who likes to explore themes of inter - sectionality in her writ - ings. email: [email protected]

V o I l 2 s u s 6 0 u m 7 1 e e 8

S T t e l m s d t H i g a I n T t a t a c i s

h h h h T o x o h o n n n k o i w i

h n e o m a o i i a m p u e n d d d e c s s h / d e n e s e

e t l e

c a

i e p n M c s t d i o w w n e

c g s

E c r e e g m C p r a i t

t r e

h i i e t e a w i a y o i e l C i s n e

g v a t n o n e a

a h g

k - p d l n h a i e e e l a . e d e c t , t m o e

. . t i r

v u ’ l i T d c e

e r n a a s h

k g D m C e t o - a r e s

r , e

n h . o h e

n r h h e e ﬂ

. n r f

c a o W

d a y a l l t . e e o f i n o a J s

d o a

r e

t n

W D u e

e p r r d e n a t

m s h o h f o

d .

w y u r s

w a n

o w r a s a o s o a t m

i e m ’ y m h o s

n t

t n t s h f

y o e a t ,

f e

n g

t h m t , p s e s a

y c a o

k A

h e

h d m i k M / a e l t e t

t r n t t l e a

w o w e y

h e a l s a . i

A o e l S c n a

e n m e l e ﬂ f i l a c k e

w ,

o i r n

l r r w

. a s a c

a s y n

c n L i o a g u u t I

, c g l p u

o w o

l a m

, m e ( r o s

n m s r w S i n a y e a o t , i m d e t

t t a ,

v s

c o

. h / n i

o h e r n

L M e

r f r S y r

g o . e

t b a m

i v / t i r r e

c e y d T e , h ’

n h i

n R e g i

v M

S e r i e , m

n 1 o

9 W n 4

1 h S ) o t r

u D g u n g e l l

6 8 a S s n o ﬂ b g h w a o t

h r

u a i o l a n ﬂ e r d e a e p r w y d ’ i u o y e

t p i d l h s r h

r c

, w

i l s m o k e

i e n i g s e n k a r e

i g m

, a i n e

r e f s

d c o k t x n

t l a s a

i o o e r e p ﬂ ’ k l ,

t r e l m

p l i

e e b a I

v i g k s .

a r c

e e

e k b h , n ﬂ W a i

r r t y r t f o . o b t o

, o i . e i

o w

g c l n w g r n

e k h f o

e g

a e . t a t o b n t

h H g t w i s w l a r y

e a u e d o t h

i r i m x k l

. n s w i l y p t

n s m e g e

t e o t l r i c . e w o k

t r w i e

n b g u t Stitching Simon Strugnell (Port Hope Simpson, 1946)

Two-years-old and twenty-six stitches. Brought by motor boat four hours from William’s Harbour, bit and cut and bleeding, to what passes in port Hope Simpson for a surgery: gas to put Simon Strugnell to sleep. A ﬂashlight his mother holds, illuminating his small body. And my two hands, taking tiny stitches, twenty-six stitches to Simon Strugnell’s head and neck. Back in William’s Harbour, his grandfather

shoots the untamed huskie pups. He shoots all the full-grown sled dogs too.

69 Eighth Day (St. Mary’s Bay, 1950)

It is the eighth day of our second son and we are on the ocean. The minister is nine nautical miles away today. Tomorrow he leaves for the season. We are Church of england, Anglicans on this inlet of ocean, bringing our newborn son across these waters to that blessèd water to be baptized.

At ﬁrst the nurse didn’t like

to let us go: new mother and new baby leaving harbour for where bay broadens into sea. She could not see how we are now, new father the skipper

of family skiff, guiding

proud peaked prow as it cuts across

whatever waves come up.

our son, curled in receiving

blanket, tiny and mighty in the way a baby is.

It’s too soon nurse Jupp said. But eight days is echo of the ancient covenant that saved Abraham’s son. And it is eight days longer than we had our last baby, dead before he was born.

70 Sounding (Mary’s Harbour, 1954)

A standing tree is no more silent than a sleeping child. While ours murmur and stir four to a bed in Battle Harbour, I go by boat and foot into St. Mary’s woods. over soft forest sough sounds the thwack of my axe, the broken-branched crash of what is felled.

Sawing, planing, the soft-pitched screaming that transforms logs to lumber. long hours hand-sanding while groves and children shudder, slumber. The staccato of measure, mark, cut, nail up

clapboard walls and rough plank ﬂoors and shallow-gable roof.

When the two-month song is done I load boat with wife, children,

everything we own. I bring them

home. This is the last house I will build. nancy, come too quick

for us to get to the nursing clinic, will cry

her way born in it, here Samuel will be quietly conceived.

This ﬁrst night, as family and framing together creak to sleep, I hear echo of the house I built ten years ago. The roar carried over the Bay, as every house in this harbour burned to the ground, including that one we never had a chance to make our home.

71 The Men Who Dug

Deep-voiced in the near-dark he will tell of how, ten years ago, while you mourned beneath los Angeles sun, he put shovel to unthawed labrador earth to bury her.

He waits the whole week of your ﬁrst visit back in sixteen years. Is waiting still this last night, sitting thick-bearded in your cousin’s near-dark kitchen to tell you, her full-grown grandson

of Halifax, Boston, California, oregon. You who adored a woman you saw less in your whole life than anyone here might see her in a month.

His reverence so strong he needs you to know how he,

how all the men who dug,

men who’ve lived here all their lives,

remember her, who lived here longer still.

Lois Leveen is a poet, novelist ( Juliet’s Nurse and The Secrets of Mary Bowser ), and medical humanities scholar. email: Lois@humanities forhealth.org

V o I l 2 s u s 7 0 u m 3 1 e e 8

b C r p t n w t c a a t a s h r I t h C

h h h o u o e o s n

l e o a a k h h r c a e e

n m b r d v n t n I p r D o o

c a a v

n b e n ﬁ

d o o t r r k e w

g r t u t

W h i c o l e o o e

s h s t d w w n

n e h s a h

t r d e h t z i s

o i n i g u c e a n

c n i z z o

h h t n n

e c

o r d v ’ u / l

e h t

i t t n

e m t o a f g e s h n e

i n s

e r

m b s

f B t t e s g t o y n o h l a w I r r , l l ’ h o

a e

s o a n s i n e o o e l o k a o n i e d e t

c a u m t t e m t n e h L

n f w g n k g

h h m

r g t r o o , d o

e e e

e e

h s C d f a o n

t d f p

w r

i h t o f

w o O u m

o o

s a t t

r h C w i f

o o h t

o t

t y s r m r i o y s /

l f s v v n e o a m m r i t s ,

i n i e

i h w g y e y f m n B e a r s d e a

s e

r , p s g l m c

n m c

i a

o I t o

t s n t o e / t

l s h a y n e h e t t i I e

d n k h t

e r m l s D o n r b i

e l i i n ’

v m H a n s t a e

o g e b i / u

y c k e a m / l

r o u k e g r ! T c

s l

h T p a s a l y

h e e t u i d a e t l h t n r l e a e r

s g e H d

s f e S /

? r B r

u e o y F c m l r u i o d n

n a n l d e

d g a

u B

n C n i d r o

d G m w a i a n m t g c e

h / s e

/ r

7 4 b a a b b w c v s a a c a a m t n a r a s o a c s n h a p I h

t e w h r r r

s l l u r e o r o t r c n h c m l ﬂ s r p o a a o o a e

i h e h a e

l t t u e i e l m o a

c c d a d o l w k w w e

o i a r i s s a i e d j a k k

n i t t n i d y c l g p t u k s e , i t t , m g c

i s u

n f k j k e

d o n e n v r m t i a a t s ? p u u u c n s r - n e r i e

a m t

g i

s s o k e u v e t w o r o e

l g t i

g a n a u g

l h

t a h e r

e i i i p p d , f

f e p d h n d

h r o r s s n

k i h r t e

n e s t

i n n

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75 Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Cruciﬁxion

triptych elongated necks and limbs having eaten and drunk too much like a perverted Alice X-rated tenniel pieces disembodied not one has eyes one is blindfolded what’s beneath?

bend sinister synecdoche piece of tail tail of piece

misogynist, misanthrope equal opportunity hater nihilist existential gloom blindness

for protection? can’t see the horror? or is it punishment itself?

the sightlessness

a cruciﬁxion

rows of teeth and open mouths where the eyes should be

the frantic malevolent teeth of his screaming popes as if the world is something to be consumed and voraciously predator predator ingress egress

76 impacted wisdom tooth wicked incisor uvula trembling like a constricted eye clarion calling all down the fanged esophageal tunnel Alice forever falling dark constricting dark to the beguiling ranks of blood-leached blindness all fall

77 The Blind Birdwatcher

he trolls woods parks meadows for a startle of song

each unseen colour emerald magenta sunrise yellow their sibilant plumage the lemon pucker of ﬂight

the brain’s neurons ﬁre along the slow tunnel of the dormant optic nerve like water buckets hand to hand a frisson of sound

bird song he sees

and vividly in the mind’s eye birding by ear

stumbles over roots for a nuthatch a pileated woodpecker

feels the cadence of a hummingbird’s quick wings

several feeders in his backyard

well away from threatening windows

peels three bananas

smells their sticky sweetness in the feeder hears the tortured wings of fruit ﬂies who cannot believe their luck the soft swish of their wings even softer than the hummingbirds’ protein in their feeding on the fruit ﬂies bloated with sweet and savoury submission higher in the food chain small and smaller still

78 buys unshelled peanuts by the kilo the taste of peanut on his tongue makes specialty blends of suet and feed

marvel: Black-Capped Chickadee sharp-shinned hawk double-Crested Cormorant even the names are musical

so ordinary but still his favourite a steller’s jay a cunning thief punked out bird electric blue with a black Mohawk beak bulging its nut-brown proboscis cartoon of the thieved nut sports a Mick jagger swagger sound, a frayed ampliﬁer on fry

the blind bird watcher ﬂaunts a similar haircut

he feels the birds’ footprints on the railing after the bird bath

steps so close

he gets feathered in the spray

their sounds like tiddly winks caught up in his eye’s cup

birds can’t taste the hot pepper in purchased feed no such sense receptors squirrels can, repellant just rats with pretty tails, dirty

79 at Maplewood Mudﬂats he snacks on the pellets believes you are what you eat winces at the searing pain has not yet become bird himself

he can feel the murder of crows blotting out the sky an eclipse he senses in his body the thwack as the bird hits the nature house’s window eerie silence heightens the elegiac wailing choir of its compatriots stumbling, he toes the small corpse the dead bird like a sandbag with tied-on feet

the body in his knapsack along with his wax-papered sandwich far too busy to eat a digniﬁed burial later in his backyard garden trowel and a ﬂower bulb on top for new life

dawn chorus

evening chorus the parentheses of his day

so full of

now, at the bird sanctuary on the white board he traces the magic-marker letters of the birds sighted that month grins at the pun and hears each song the letters thrum to life, leaping, rustling, ﬂapping

though he prefers to birdwatch alone sometimes he goes with his sighted friend

80 —he hears more; his partner sees more— it’s like an equation or a musical composition birdwatching sharpens the mind good for the body, the soul

he watches birds with his heart and brain also his ears and tongue ﬁngers nostrils even his penis though it’s not perverse much less perverted an involuntary stiffening like a wet dream when a song always beautiful is more than usually so a thrum a recognition of wonder of small beauty almost divine some might cry

the organization of Blind Bird Watchers he is head of his chapter

the paperwork pains him

but he is conscientious, passionate

this, too, part of his life list

there are deaf bird watchers, too

he is going to meet the local branch now When they go out after for coffee their fingers will move like the flights of small birds and he will listen to the faint slaps and thwacks smile at the sounds as identifiable as arresting as any unsung songbird’s

81 Don’t Bend Over

the old joke about the soap in the shower but I’m not allowed to shower anyhow no shampoo for three days smell like chicken manure dream of herbal essence the green ﬁelds, misty meadowy Vaseline on the lens

I unpack easter decorations look straight ahead box on table do squats to chin level let the packing paper fall to the ﬂoor don’t look down!

don’t want my new implant to slip out hold bunnies and eggs and egg cups in front of me to see the peachy artiﬁcial grass of the coops so cute

eggs the same shape as illustrations of a myopic eyeball

dotted lines show where the shafts of light meet

in front of the retina no longer orb but as elliptical as an egg

representational, but still

eye cups for washing —a teeny bird bath! such delighted splashing with its miniature wings though right now I can have none of that as gritty as my eye feels— and egg cups so similar though mine are less utilitarian, prettier, all ﬂoral curvature and spring-like colours

82 one falls on the ﬂoor if I aim just right I could have a hole in one! don’t think on that! look up! look up!

it’s the season of rebirth not all grass is pink and plastic what visions will hatch from my new eye? a small cheep the rustle of ﬁssured ice, out of season the sound of squawking ﬁerce enragement my eye cracks open

ugly duckling beautiful swan rooster caruncle gizzard avian ﬂu viruses the ﬂoor beneath me cackles to life

pecks at my ankles

a feathery ﬂeshy swish

I’m too afraid to look down

83 Dornen

raindrops in triplicate political imbroglio my simple Courier font has become gothic letters like an unset jelly

reading writing both lost in translation

thorns reﬂections silhouette shadows all at once hazard a guess translation is everywhere even in my muttersprache!

In The Bell Jar when esther went crazy

she couldn’t read letters grew “barbs and rams’ horns” rams horner Widerhaken but james joyce is always impenetrable and german a rusty chain link fence Kudzu tall

barbed wire above

Maybe it’s not in my eyes

but in my head?

stacheldraht?

plath honeymooned in Benidorm did joyce ever visit santorini? I can’t read what google claims

sporting antlers like elk surly mountain goats walk on black lava cliffs far above me in the swirling eddies

84 or are they pack ponies with tie-on antlers? intractable bleating cheating? deleting?

I ﬂail and ﬂounder they mock me as I wait and wait some more warten ausbrechen for my volcano to erupt

85 Fun and Games

makeshift plump chair as for chemo drips warehouse for abandoned furniture desk cornea-curved

this waiting room needs more than a re-face to bring it up to speed renovate!

let’s rock and roll, the o. r. nurse says squeezing eye drop after eye drop there’s a party hat in your lap when ready ready for what? I think of conical paper hats

bright Crayola colours kiddy birthdays presents desired and unwanted new Year’s eve celebrations inebriation, pursuit and capture

midnight kisses

eyes wide open

it’s all good fun and games until someone cries

but it looks more like a shower cap to keep out the reno’s dust maybe it’s happening earlier than I think the sedative is taking effect wheeee! a buzz saw in the background? or is that a chop saw? can’t shower or shampoo for three days no water in the eye surely the tears won’t be that big

86 this is all my protection?

it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye

dimly, a parade of stepford patients post-surgery shufﬂe careful not to look down leis that look like nooses a conga line of party hats, noisemakers, blowouts only the o. r. nurses and doctors kick extra high their laughter balloons up and up suspended, a hush, an intake of breath

suddenly the ball drops the door slides shut on the lingering patient last in the line it darkens serpentine streamers siren song an abandoned lei, not mine?

ready or not, here I come

fuck, it’s all fun and games until someone dies

87 What’s Left

myopic child so close to the chalkboard she might have been velcroed white on black so hard to see but see and read and write and do she must

coke-bottle glasses and then contacts

years pass she looks intently wilfully longingly hopefully at the world, at its wonders

throws herself into dance, hiking, birdwatching leaps into marriage, into parenthood

then Als entombs her a slow weakening, melting

now the only muscles left are in her eyes she looks at letters on the board

spells out

love

88 Bindi

before follow-up laser surgery a stick-on yellow plastic dot on one cheek to make clear at which eye the surgeon should aim his laser ray blasting the monsters of scar tissue so that there won’t be a never event a video game, low art

the lone dot like slippage an out-of-place bindi a fallen coloured tear a faltering third eye displaced

chakra not sure where to go oscillating aura mysticism on the move

around the periphery of the eye clinic

in a slow-moving meditative trance

we walk marked, dilated, we of the pineal eyes

waiting waiting for the surgeon god

whose hand and word are wisdom

what will spill into our too-open pupils? enter our torpid brains?

we are a tribe set apart from normal routine the quotidian is beyond these walls though it seems as if we have been here forever so long that we’ll need to get another referral from our family doctors or a walk-in clinic for this appointment

89 ritual, repetition perception, hubris, injustice the eye clinic now a special satellite of the VAg we will soon become a new Bharti Kher performance art piece our afﬂiction high art

90 The Second Coming

to avoid marking stacks of incomprehensible poetry analyses sullied student logic like hieroglyphics Yeats’ rough beast as a celebrity rocker I’d joked about what a rough ride his Mary would have as he slouched into the holy city

I’ll get some cleaning done ﬂoors washed and waxed pet hair sucked up dishes dried and shelved surfaces immaculate

now what?

in my absence the paper piles have grown to a teetering height so I mop myself into a corner of the bathroom housework to bodywork

clean it up

what might be found in the hidden recesses of my body?

drug runners cross borders with drugs in rectums, vaginas

like so many Benwa balls but probably not as titillating

fornix fun fact, this from a spectacularly weak student, prostitutes used to ply their trade under the arches of Ancient rome the question: fornicate in your vault or mine?

I try to turn myself inside out but it’s a chore and a bore

91 the hand mirror a too-teeny speculum not much bigger than a Q-tip and no chance of hitting my g-spot

cakes of earwax plucked look like ﬂoating candles wickless, witless I really should be getting back to work but what might be wrested from my nose with a ﬁnger? circlets of gold? the lost scrolls of Ancient somebody-or-other? maybe an essay that reveals somesense? (I should be so lucky)

while examining a wrinkle I pull down my lower left eyelid some woman had 27 contact lenses hidden in hers not urban myth— I’ve seen the pictures!

wrinkled dingbat, her deep-set eyes like treasure chests

pirate fortune

17 lenses, 17!

becoming a thin pearl mucous shielding the irritant, its shimmer coating

a gem, a halo

I’m vigilant about good lens hygiene but what the hell I excavate my left fornix … and ﬁnd —I’m as surprised as anyone when out fall— two turtle doves four calling birds and a partridge resembling a falcon in a desiccated all too-familiar pear tree which scratches and burns a little as it exits

92 I have to back away from the sink the bathroom is crowded! all those wretched birds in the jacuzzi tub too loud for a solitary tuesday afternoon Christmas yet months away so this cache is from last year?

if this is the secular, where’s the sacred? will frankincense, magi, and a baby jesus plummet from the right eye? that rocking cradle will have awfully pointy corners

Well, I’d rather leave something for tomorrow wait on the advent everyone needs someone to love something worthwhile to do and something to look forward to

so I’ll put the cotton balls away go back to my marking surprisingly refreshed and weightless

if it weren’t for all the squawking

the gnashing of beaks

and the unsanitary, slippery bird droppings

that I really should clean up

goose grease as lubricant a fornix is as a fornix does maybe the Immaculate Conception was through not the ear but the eye?

suddenly the disturbing ﬂutter of wings how big is that bird? oh, geez, a ministering angel? not the dawn of a new-fangled gabriel blethering about another Annunciation

93 Yeats clearly a little off with the timing of “the second Coming”

though I doubt it will do much good —egress, ingress, don’t you know— I step away from the sink make an emergency rain hat of a small clutch of essays double-lock the bathroom door avert my eyes from the too-yielding expansive mirror my face leonine, hooded

close my eyes tight tight turn out the light and pray

94 Intimates

at the eye doctor’s no stirrups and speculum no probing pink canals and narrow cavities no thin ﬁshy leakage but a deeper intimacy

she stares into my inner orbits curvature of each retina orbs’ hydrostatic equilibrium back of my brain a planetary pull getting close to the soul her eckleburg eye looms aperture

she commands my eyeballs move as the hands of a clock look to three o’clock six o’clock eleven o’clock

what time is it, Mr. Wolf?

oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have! putting me through a long day

I’ve been in this chair forever

soon into the seasons

don’t want to lose an hour will I see better if I gain one? daylight savings time? I struggle to remain stationary compliant

for today’s children analogue as ancient as sanskrit what does she bark to them? I recall a Beverly Cleary story

95 mother tells ramona to leave home at quarter after eight she knows a quarter is twenty-ﬁve cents so she leaves at 8:25 doesn’t understand how she can be late for school runs and runs but can’t catch up

sure don’t want that kind of miscommunication when the cataract surgeon marks my eye for implant placement six o-clock, he says and marks below my iris six? is that a.m. or p.m.? time for a drink? it’s cocktail hour somewhere

don’t fuck up don’t want my eye to be a cinematographic photograph no camera obscura for me how obsolete is that? no aqueous humour leaking through a pinhole like a blown-out easter egg

my vision like a jeff Wall lightbox

do not desire to stand on my head to see everything

my life unfolding as a photo-conceptual performance piece

is pluto even registered as a planet anymore?

things can change in the blink of an eye don’t blink! my eye jerks into readiness—fuck! spring back! Author of Teacher’s Pets fall forward! and After Ted & Sylvia, Crystal Hurdle teaches english and Creative Writing at Capilano university. email: [email protected]

V o I l 2 s u s 9 0 u m 7 1 e e 8

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Hiking in the Forest

I stepped aside to let the cyclist pass You are welcome! I said. He actually Had said nothing, but I assumed he had Said Thanks! And a light feeling swept Through my heart, You are welcome As I continued to follow the trail Into the depth of paciﬁc Spirit Forest Each step trodden on the leaves And a breeze blew through the komorebi You are welcome in this kingdom of trees, the Whole natural world I was in, together with All my heart and soul. You are welcome To share the tranquility of an unmanned realm, where The entire physical world wraps itself up

In me, and beyond all roads. You are welcome To penetrate my private moment of space and, in particular You are welcome to cut short this line of thought

101 Father Knows Why

You know well where your son lives You forget his address, and each time Your birthday approaches, he forgets to call You. He is simply too exhausted by his job Too occupied with his own family affairs, or Too busy hanging around with his pals, while His baby daughter spends all his money Saved to pay his mortgage. You miss him A lot sometimes, but you don’t want to go To California, or near where he dwells. You Know you always could—there’s even no need to Apply for a visa; there will always be plenty Of time for travel. Your father came to visit You only once. That was a trip from the other

Side of the world, to Vancouver, Westside.

102 To Be Continued: A Portrait of a Poet Getting Newly Old

Born with half a dozen defects and deformities But always trying to be a damned perfectionist

Never able to pass any English test in a Chinese high school But managed to obtain a Canadian phD in English literature

Growing up in the lowest physical conditions But having the highest quests for spiritual life

With much fewer needs for money than a true puritan But working like an unserviced coin-making machine

Deep in love with nature

But prisoned in a big city

A man of few words by nature But making a living by teaching

Enjoys expressing himself most

But has few readers or listeners

Cherished a young dream about becoming a political leader

But living a self-exiled marginalized life most of the time

Never really cared for by any human Changming Yuan But full of love for other fellow beings edits Poetry Paciﬁc with Allen Yuan and hosts Happy Yangsheng in Vancouver. He has pub - lished over 1,409 poems across 41 countries. Email: changmingyuan@gmail .com

103

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h o u a s s - n t - i r d n g o t f - , - Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 Although I was the designated family blot, all six members of my family were squarely on the healthy side of the life-or-death equation. My par - ents were hungry children during the depression, and I believe that they never ﬁlled up. Admirably, they never let their children go hungry. There would always be red meat in the center of the plate. At every dinner that robust serving of meat would be surrounded by two cooked vegetables, an over-dressed salad, bread with butter and jelly, and a buttery potato. A home-baked dessert or ice cream followed. heaven help the child who might

declare herself “stuffed” before any food placed be - fore her was eaten: “clean your plate!” It was only christian. We were taught to override natural regu - lators of appetite to insure that no one wasted those calories our mere existence deﬂected from

the world’s bloated-belly poor.

So I grew up cleaning my loaded plate while swallowing the commonplace, ironically fed me,

which being fat resulted from eating too much

food. When I was an adolescent and could go about the world on my own, I broke loose from tyrannical feeders by making my own ad hoc menu, indulging my freedom in candy bars, ice cream, and little cans of fried onion rings that called out to me. I fed mine in hiding. I was ashamed to have witnesses; my eating was mastur - batory. My right to exist hadn’t been proven and I knew full well that I took up “more than my fair share” of space. On one hand I cowered; on the 106 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 other I gave the ﬁnger to anyone who looked at me too long. I wasn’t born with pica or a deviant compul - sion to jerk cookies to my mouth: This wasn’t a pe - diatric medical condition. I was learning how to use my experience to solve a problem. When there’s an external threat, an embattled creature does well to surround itself with a stout defensive wall. father monitored women. he noticed them with an anatomist’s speciﬁcity. When we sat down each evening for our family meal, instead of asking what the children had learned in school, he de -

briefed his observations about the females his prurience radar had tracked that day. Each “broad” received a rating comment: whose ass looked like two pigs in a sack; who had no de - cency to be wearing jeans in public; whose stock -

ing seams weren’t straight, and whose dress must

have been glued on. Even with my limited experi - ence of fathers and dining customs, I often

squirmed in my chair and gulped my food.

I never imagined becoming a woman because it was clearly too hazardous an aspiration. It helped in a way that my dad declared The Smart One a poor marriage prospect by virtue of her unappeal - ing ﬁgure. Mother seemed not to disagree, but she wasn’t one to speak up anyway. Where father was pulled up to the table, salivating with his bib tucked in, Mother was out to lunch. I even had to suggest to her that I was probably overdue for a bra? The other girls were talking. … She was so 107 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 surprised that I actually saw her eyes refocus. for how long had she not looked up to think about it? “You may be right,” she allowed. Bur father never missed a thing and wasn’t shy about speaking up. The pleasure I took in an au - tumn afternoon, stretched out on the living room ﬂoor, basking in a generous patch of afternoon sunshine, was chilled by my growing awareness of father’s crossed-arm presence looming behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I heard him turn away mut - tering in a stage whisper, “just look at those thighs.” The disgust was as heavy as if he’d sniffed

chicken putrefying at the back of the refrigerator.

* * * In the family photograph album were certain square, black and white Brownie snapshots with

wavy edges that Mother passed over quickly be -

cause she thought they made her look fat. They were taken at the community pool on some occa -

sion when she had taken my sister and me swim -

ming. She just looked like Mom to me, and as a kid I didn’t get what I do now, that she saw her image as something grotesque and distorted. Maybe she considered that she still had postpar - tum weight to shed. At the least, she had been caught unawares and hadn’t been able to strike her best pose. I don’t recall Mother as overweight though, but as the opposite: I recall her as episodi - cally thin tending to the skinny, as in long and neu - tral and slithering toward death. 108 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 Mom’s scrapes with death were always wind- ups to surgeries or the results of surgeries. She had ulcers several times, each time requiring an opera - tion. Before the operation she’d be thin, I think be - cause her gastric pain limited the foods she could tolerate, or she was on some special diet for ulcer patients. She couldn’t drink milk or orange juice. But certainly when she came home from the hospi - tal on jell-O diets, she was even thinner. I was in elementary school in those days and didn’t under - stand any details of the big picture. The thinner she grew, the more frightening the prognosis. But

Mom didn’t die. Slowly, she’d plump back up and life would go on until the next ﬂesh-eating medical crisis. By the time I was in eighth grade, Mother was no longer having ulcers, but was sick as a result of

the past ulcer operations. Scar tissue had built up

at the base of her esophagus, the site of several ear - lier operations, and it grew steadily more difﬁcult

for food to pass into her stomach. She was a

trooper though and would not be deterred from at - tending a national Science foundation six-week summer institute for teachers that she’d been ad - mitted to. My brothers stayed with father in Ohio while my sister and I were sent with Mother to Providence, where we stayed in Brown university dormitory housing. Mom didn’t last the course. We had to be evac - uated because she was starving. for the couple of weeks we were there, she persisted in a conflicted, 109 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 masochistic way. My sister and I would find her in the bathroom swallowing a Medieval-looking medical device—a thick, heavy rubber snake that, once swallowed far enough and placed correctly, she jiggled about in efforts to enlarge what small passage remained into her stomach. My sister and I were considered Big girls, but, “Was this right?” we’d wonder, stranded and queasy. We felt little and vulnerable and tried to plan what we’d do if she died, but we didn’t have the first idea what we’d do. We weren’t keen on being rescued by dad, who was terrified of hospitals, medicine, and

operations, and made no bones about it. When he came to take us home, we were unsettled to find him not shocked, but unfazed by his failing wife’s shadowed pride in her new figure. When we were airlifted home, all five feet and seven inches of

Mother weighed eighty-ﬁve pounds.

I’ve encountered women since who have, in compromised health, exhibited behavior similar to

Mother’s. her anorexic body invited sympathy for

her illness, yet she was not inattentive to any ex - pressions—mufﬂed or exclamatory—of wonder or wistfulness for the transformation. The means of her achievement was beside the point: She hadn’t died, and she was thinner than anyone else. Once she was on her feet again, dad extolled her ﬁgure, and I supposed then that she liked it, however cross this made me. I didn’t care how she looked; I didn’t even care about her feelings anymore. My sister and I had been set aside like props during the whole 110 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 ghastly episode, left unplanned for, to depend on each other for comfort. In the bloody fervor of our wishes that Mother would survive, our comfort fan - tasies never led to the victory of her renewed sex ap - peal, but only to our own self-indulgent dreams that our mom would awaken to concern for her pu - bescent, newly bleeding daughters.

* * * In my forties, as the result of a very disorderly nervous breakdown, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was as depressed as glue. My anger was

as terrifying when quiet as when shrapnel explo - sions shattered all sanity. These days, surgeries aren’t often prescribed for conditions like mine, so electro-shock therapy was never mentioned within my hearing, and I be -

lieve lobotomy is a barbaric bygone. gone too is

the institution of asylum, open-ended time and a place free from daily noise, where the silenced

inner voices can have a chance to be heard.

When I fell apart, my downfall was publically marked not as much by my becoming an unpre - dictable menace as much as it was by my simulta - neous transformation to fat Lady. There’s no question that my fatness was the result of two drugs. Prozac was only anecdotally tied to weight gain, but it certainly put pounds on me. Since re - search didn’t support the evidence I reported, doc - tors were free to believe I lied about my eating habits. I’ve found this to be a regular side effect of 111 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 Prozac, that the people in regular contact with the patient suffer increased incredulity about her testi - mony on all reported experience. When I started taking depakote, which clinic studies have shown to disinhibit appetite and increase weight, my providers were less tendentious. But I’m talking only about side effects here. getting fat was the least of my worries then. My concern was to last each day without causing or suffering mayhem. Because my family would need support in case I failed to maintain the household fabric; if my children or husband were infected by

anxiety; if the girls were bullied about their crazy mother, or should I have a fatal accident; for all these reasons, I did not keep my diagnosis a secret. I couldn’t worry about being scorned. But as I grew fatter, I realized that I provided something much

easier than my diagnosis for others to cringe about.

In a smart, wealthy community, gossiping about a person’s mental illness is unseemly and makes

adults feel small. disapproving of the mentally ill is

fraught, both socially and when you lie awake at night facing your failings across the counterpane. It’s normal, though, to disapprove of fat people. Still, I was so grateful that depakote controlled my mood extremes that I considered even the fat an ab - solute beneﬁt to me, as good as bananas or coffee. My vanity was nothing compared to relief from the shifting winds of anomie and hysteria. Yet when a door opened to let vanity peek in years later, I risked an experimental medication 112 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 change. A new psychiatrist asked me to replace depakote with topiramate, a new anti-convulsive that had been found to have the added property of effective mood stabilization. Incidentally, patients on topiramate lost weight: Maybe I could ﬁnd two forms of relief from the new pill. Topiramate held my moods and, with no effort on my part, my weight declined by over forty pounds in a few years. I was delighted with the way I looked and felt. Bipolar disorder is soul- crushing. Learning to gain control of one’s moods and emotions without becoming a terrorist of the

self is hard work from which there is no rest. To be granted a free pass in another struggle—one I’d de - cided to forgo anyway—was an inestimable good. A slimmer body is a good thing, but it’s no sil - ver lining to the terrors of major mental illness. I

assured well-meaning admirers that the assump -

tion of a mighty struggle to discipline my body was absolutely incorrect: t 112 here had been nei -

ther intention nor effort on my part.

And for those who knew about my psychiatric struggles, the change of my ﬁgure “for the better” appeared to signal an “improved” outlook too. In fact, entirely unremarked or cheered by anyone, I had been recovering all along, even as depakote expanded my girth. But when I lost weight, I was easier for others to take in, and the health attributed to me in - creased as I grew less objectionable to the public eye. Once I lost weight, people fantastically regis - 113 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 tered improvements of mood that I had already long since achieved. Worse, their assumptions that I was ﬁnally “returning to normal” blocked any appreciation for the magnitude of my work and accomplishments. had I remained fat, I’d have been free to continue my recovery without being returned to the wrong box of normative and nice. Being overweight palpably reminds others that you are abnormal, and they remain wary. There is freedom in that.

* * *

Isn’t it normal to want to be thin? Isn’t thin pretty and sexy? And doesn’t every woman, married or not, wish to be the envy of other women? Well, I did not. Being thoughtlessly relegated to the sphere of

the healthy and stable by weight loss, suddenly I

was burdened by all the social assumptions that accompany slimming down. Bipolar illness labels

one as avoidable; shunning provides its own little

island of protection. But now I found that I was as - sumed to be a different kind of menace, one caused by a better figure on top of the divorce my illness had precipitated. What is more threaten - ingly unpredictable than a mentally ill woman: A divorced woman who has lost weight. Then the history of mental illness becomes secondary to the politics of freedom and shape. had I been able to acknowledge how fragile I was in the first years of the millennium, I’d proba - 114 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 bly not have made it. I was fighting bipolar disor - der for control of my future and past while coping with a divorce that had uprooted me from my home and every familiar relationship. Living in a new place in another state, I was no longer a per - son with a history of mental derangement; I didn’t even have a psychiatrist. In a new place, I was per - ceived as a high-strung divorcee of reasonable ap - pearance. As such I was competition to other single women, ineligible for family invitations, and carefully kept at a distance by the wives of mar - ried men. Where was depakote when I really

needed it? My life would have been better with those thirty extra pounds to cushion and protect me against the psycho-social assumptions that ob - truded on my uphill, invisible personal work of restoring and reinforcing my mental health.

“no rest for the wicked!” a friend liked to quip.

how true. Illness, no matter how private to one’s own body or mind, is always a public perform -

ance, and performance invites criticism whether or

not you wanted to be in the public eye. At the height of my despair during my mental health cri - sis, even my husband had decided that I was “fak - ing it” because I didn’t “act sick” enough for his preconceptions. nothing so wretched as the in - scrutable world of the walking ill. Everyone soldiers on in life, whether or not we are ill or feel capable of functioning in the world. It’s not only the mentally ill who have to impro - vise their lives like this, but people with all sorts of 115 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 invisible dysfunctions that absorb vast shares of their energies. I know as well as anyone the value of protective silence and invisibility where I can heal at my own pace, under the care of a trusted doctor, with the setbacks and victories that come slowly over time. I know that circumstances al - most never grant these: insurance companies do not pay for asylum. Even more demanding are the curious and critical people with whom we interact in public places and our homes daily. Society sees thin people in a way that it doesn’t regard the overweight. Positive ideas asso -

ciated with thinness form a trap of assumptions that extends to every aspect of the life of the ob - served: “She loves being looked at.” “She is just who she appears to be; it’s impossible that she could disguise anything—like illness.” She is no

trouble to the observer, who is comfortable with

what he sees. If she goes off the rails; if she com - mits suicide, no one will have seen it coming:

“She was so normal, so perfect.” But then, she

was left with nowhere private to place the other. Weight, mental illness, or abnormality may all make me a dangerous person to the world, or un - likeable at the least. My experience shows me how valuable they are to self-protection and healing. few people tolerate difference in others very well; we don’t like to be disrupted, interrupted, or asked to consider a new ﬂavor. People with invisible ailments do well to make themselves conspicuous in a disruptive way. 116 Volume 12 Issue 2 2017 normal people will whisper or mutter, disapprove, and steer clear, leaving the sick and tired blessed space needed for their thoughts and doubts, their trials and errors to play out in. Space to hear and talk with people. They can hear without the inter - ference of unthinking wishers for the wellness of ﬁtting right in.

Ann Starr is writing a personal history of em - bodiment. She is the publisher of upper hand Press. Email: [email protected]

117

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- o t - l i y t n Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 bugs and worms. during the rains he was not a threat, but a red-winged blackbird didn’t split hairs—or feathers—and dive-bombed the bigger bird repeatedly. Often, the same bird could be found warding off iridescent Brewer’s blackbirds on foraging missions. Farinata thought that the red-winged blackbird was exemplar of fatherhood, but that thought only brought back the trauma, or more accurately, its harbinger, like some unidenti - ﬁed but almost fathomable speck on the horizon that was approaching at top speed. Farinata felt it approaching and turned away, turning his mind to

anti-matters. he remembered the celebrated painter from these parts who had striven so hard— all her life in fact—to think of nothing. Most folks didn’t have to try quite so hard, but that judgment was only another mood coming on, or so he reck -

oned, like a funny cloud ﬂoating into view. he

need not heed its shape nor pore over the prospect of its future outpourings. no, the sun was shining

and, for the moment, he was happy. not too

happy, as that could knock him off balance just as easily. climb no mountains and you will find no valleys. The hot hard flat of the path, that was for him, and in his estimation, long and substantive and relatively comma-less. Vast sections of this dry unforgiving place were submerged, but that did not matter. The landscape could not all become ar - dent aquarium because he knew that was only a misquoted line in his head. he knew that sun and land were altering him, too. 120 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 You couldn’t run from your problems, and yet, he had done so, or so he figured, and that was quite all right. He was a different person and that was also quite all right. He felt that he had left everything be - hind, the need for thinking, the need to write, the (stu - pid) need for money, other needs he dare not name lest he disrupt his fine equilibrium under the sun. Various problems had stowed away with him, but they were friendlier once afloat, and besides, they had nowhere to hide amid all this openness. The trick was to give up everything, to live a life that most folks on two- thirds of the continent would consider a life not worth

living, and to no practical purpose, living that “crummy” life for its own sake and somehow deeming it none too shabby. Indeed, he was pacing himself, and taking in things very slowly. Feel around—fumble if

you must—for the present, then grab hold gently. That

was the best he could do and that was quite all right.

A small grasshopper hopped from one plant stem to another. Then another. Then another. A while back,

they had been tiny nymphs, clinging for dear life to a

blade of grass. Now they were instars although the pre - cise stage eluded him. After a long winter, the adults had appeared first, crepitating during spells of intense sunlight. They were band-winged grasshoppers, but their scientific name was like something out of a clas - sical Greek play. The other day, he had seen a small specimen with an intricate pattern on its pronotum and abdomen. The professor’s best guess was an immature clear-winged grasshopper, one of the two leading pests. Sharing that title, and sharing the same field of 121 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 wild barley and thistle right near Urban Barn, was the two-striped grasshopper, who did small penance for wiping out crops by eating up herbicide-resistant kochia (originally a bit of tumbleweed rolling across the landscape, hell-bent on colonizing a relatively yel - low landscape). In the same field, the lesser migratory grasshopper and Packard’s grasshopper were up and about, and doing their part to eat everything in sight. As for the speckled rangeland and northern green- striped grasshoppers, they enjoyed singing in the live and dead grass upon which they dined, preferring this mound in the sun that encouraged their leaps of

courtship. Yes, they were also quite all right. They could ﬂy pretty far, but courting slowed them down. The males would crepitate with a ﬂash of red or yel - low wings, and then a female would either wave a

suitor in or, in Saskatchewan fashion, get into the kick-

off position, which as signals go was loud and clear.

Anyway, they would all be dead soon. That was the brutal truth and not one of Farinata’s valleys of mood

getting its own back. He was all right with the brutal

truth because there was by no means a shortage of them any given summer. A light breeze blew through clumps of cattails in the middle of the slough, which was not really a slough. Soon, it would dry up again to a mere trick - ling. Memories would be reduced to garbage that per - petually ﬂoated in from construction sites and retail outlets. When the snows had ﬁrst stopped, Farinata had been caught tidying up around a bush in front of his window and had been warned by passing neigh - 122 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 bours that the city did that. Actually, there were two or three people who rode around in a little car to check on each plant. There was also one woman who was never seen doing anything but driving around in cir - cles and talking on her phone. She had turned the role of civic worker into an art form, but she was not the special someone Farinata had taken a shine to when he was in a mood—or in the mood. She had given him the glad eye and had even gossiped about him—wait, that didn’t add up to much. He must have heard a few things before his mood had taken him for a “joyride,” shooting off on a frolic of its own. In the interim, he

had given up coffee, or more accurately, the place had produced a powerful disinclination for the stuff within him. Irish breakfast did the trick, in the rotation with green, jasmine, lemon, hibiscus, blueberry superfruit,

chamomile, and licorice spice for those frequent occa -

sions when he required an adaptogen to deal with star -

tling new situations. Passionﬂower before bed was now reality and not a come-on, honest.

Farinata would have been happy—but not too

happy—to explain to the young lady his working theo - ries, were they not an epidemic of overshare or TMI, thanks to her caffeinated contributions and extra- strong cups of Kicking Horse at home, combined with the seasonal shift around the time of, say, a recent stab - bing in the downtown mall, which had increased his propensity for “manic” behaviour, turning slights real or imagined into gushing injuries—in that case, there was little difference, if an emotional injury birthed the suppression or eradication of a key gene for regulating 123 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 neuronal production, or let us say, nodal dedication— so that her finger-to-nose pejorative retorts reached his acute hearing heightened by misappropriated adrenal purpose, and without even buying dinner first, took ad - vantage of his flawed hippocampus—or let us say, cerebral seahorse—and recontextualized this sudden glut of neural data in terms of image, sensation, and mood. For argument’s sake, let us suppose that the af - termath from a string of unhealthy relationships, al - ready glomming onto that common trait of Wagnerian heroes, that fear of abandonment engendered by pro - genitors who had left him on a wobbly hillock (or

butte) that one time, or perhaps without umbilical for good, cultivating a neatly labelled neuronal garden to which the name of the fair-to-middling barista was ap - pended, like a colourful species pinned right through

speckled shield under glass, or a ﬁckle noon-ﬂower

plunked down in the muck. Given such a loveless a

priori , the rough-and-tumble a posteriori arose from the imbalance of glutamate promoting irritability, to

dip our beaks even deeper in the elemental chemistry

of Farinata’s issues, postulating in step with the school of thought that dopamine agonists have a starring role in precipitating mania. In other words, the red-handed culprit, happiness. We would have a real story on our hands if Farinata were addicted to counting bathroom tiles, buying irregular shoe sizes, voting against celebrity poker players, or watching golden shower scenarios until his red eyes ached—or eked basalt, whichever comes ﬁrst. No, he was merely excited by the thought 124 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 of her and quickly upset by the absence of her, cast down into a despondent quagmire of confused inter - pretations, what with the mind being its own place, even if it was more purgatorial than ever before. Now he could watch joggers of all shapes and sizes jounc - ing past his window and no longer feel it was ab - solutely necessary to mate with each and every one of them, lest he perish before the summer ended. Now he would cease to swagger about playing tarnished knight for splendid ladies between the hours of ten and two on business days , splendid ladies who had already pledged their troth to unresponsive oafs. Now he

would seek out his own borage—an abominable turn of phrase—in that ﬁeld of wild barley where purple thistles nodded over sow thistle and buffalo beans, where he had spent many idle hours in contemplation

of surrounding canola or mustard, or incestuous com -

binations of the two, ignoring that upstart mania wait -

ing in the wings like a brash understudy ready to burst out at the ﬁrst misstep, provided the killdeer did not

kick up the usual fuss. After all, there were plans to

move the #1 and lengthen his constitutional and that was quite all right. Farinata was famished and that did not help. He opened a small bag of mountain trail mix and knocked back a few handfuls. Fatty acids and selenium, fol - lowed by naturally occurring lithium and magnesium, and sounding far more exciting than nuts, seeds, and a glass of fizzy water. His stomach brain would be free to give the all-clear to his “brain” brain, giving him leave to go on a vision quest although there wasn’t 125 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 quite enough mix for that. Then again, no mountains, no valleys. In some ways, to examine the fifth instar of the infamous camnula pellucida had been his vision quest, a real vision only a few paces away that would lead to a luminous journey inward. Of course, it was not too late to catch a bus to the farmer’s market. Then he could buy baby kale and pea shoots from the grumpy hippy type whose mustard green dreams are besieged by drifting canola and rolling kochia. Farinata had not dared to see if the purveyors of chicken and waffles were back—suddenly the image of Trish flickered seductively across the packed live

screening just above his barking animal brain, down - ing a wafﬂe that left traces of whipped cream on her lips, revealing the faint apparition of her tongue … Hang on, that had not even happened! False idols

were a symptom of one of his moods gearing up—yes,

the sun was already at a certain angle of intensity. The

lone noon-ﬂower had shut up long ago, and the grasshoppers around him were crackling to signify

their half-mad interest in mating. Farinata heard rapid

snaps and caught scarcely perceptible flashes of colour. No, the food truck might not be there. If the food truck was not there, he might sink into a valley and find himself unable to claw his way up and out again, and then the simple trip downtown would be - come a tragic adventure. No, he did not want to stray too far from the pseudoslough today. Perhaps he would go to the breakfast chain with the grandmoth - erly icon. No, they would only give him heaps of white flour with a few berries hidden somewhere in - 126 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 side—practically a form of colonization—for an arm and a leg, and that too would be tragic. It would also be strange for him to observe countless families enjoy - ing themselves in a great clamour, lifting those suspect objects into their “cakeholes,” as he reminded himself he was the one with the noggin problem. Two of the city workers passed in their large or - ange car that saved them from having to walk more than a few feet along the environmental reserve. They did not return Farinata’s smile and, in return, he did not think much of them. Still, they were winning the war on mosquito larvae, or so he understood, and that

was something. It was good to try and keep happy, but not too happy. Then he thought of the little bird. One night, he had been listening to Cecilia Bartoli’s force - ful rendition of Vivaldi’s Cessate, omai cessate when

he realized that one of the robin’s brood in the bush

outside was trying to sing back at the voice it could

hear, and with much difﬁculty. Would the trauma for the little bird be one day learning that Cecilia Bartoli

was not its mother and could not—schedule permit -

ting—bring food, perhaps not now or ever? This was not the ﬁrst example of wildlife outside showing a keen appreciation for music of the baroque era. Why Farinata should feel paternalistic urges toward the tiny boreal chorus frogs and small grasshopper instars was beyond him; another working theory was that his un - conditional love for them was connected in some way with his reptilian brain. It goes without saying that if his thyroid tests came back okay and his endocrine levels were good, then 127 Volume 13 Issue 1 2018 his own metamorphosis might very well be at hand. As for his happiness problem, the ﬁeld was scheduled to become the newest home for the most familiar shop - ping and fast-food experiences, and that was quite all right with everyone.

garry Thomas Morse is a two-time nominee for the governor general’s Award for his poetry collections, Discovery Passages and Prairie Harbour. he survives in Winnipeg. Email: morse.nomad @gmail.com

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