POP!
All
the pop therapists on IG
are
fangirling over each other, speaking on podcasts
with
their effervescent guest.
No
other adjective will do
but
this overused word that evaporates
in
the air like her message
on
embodiment. That’s ironic,
Alanis.
We haven’t left the cartoon
patient
lying on a couch—nay,
chesterfield—staring
at the ceiling
while
the notebook-wielding psychiatrist
grows
excited, worried, bored.
This
year’s therapists throw back
their
heads in body-rippling laughter
You
too can be this happy
Follow
my lead (worth the modest fee).
Let’s
update the cartoon: seat all this
effervescence
on a chesterfield
bring
in the meteorologists to study
the
barometric pressure
when
they all pop off like bottle caps,
no
substance left in their wake.
First
Word
maybe
ball, dog, car, banana
a
word with pizazz! that first letter
diving
into a pool and
bringing
up all sorts of splash
a
word of action: something to throw,
play,
go, eat. A bounce, bark,
jingle
of keys, yellow peel
unzipped
and slipped
from
a high chair as you bite
nature’s glue stick. I wasn’t there
when
Ben changed you at daycare,
limbs
propelling with anger
body
rocking back and forth
like
a soon-to-be capsized boat.
Amidst
the storm, you cry “SLEEP!”
Don’t
these fools know what I need?
Your
father and I will laugh
at
this story for years, not quite believing it.
You
will have no choice not to hear it
the
slow, soft opening, climbing
to
the whine of double e’s drawn out
with
each retelling until poof!
that
magical ending, dropping off as quickly
as
your head on the pillow.
Sleep
Country
Sleep
is a country I visited on a Tuesday afternoon when the rain was falling and I
had an hour before my next appointment. The doors were made of glass and I
opened them, stepping off the wet sidewalk into the soft dry surfaces of this
land where a man was lying in bed with book in hand. My entrance rushed him to
his feet and before long I was the person stretched on a mattress while he
handed me pillow after pillow as in a dream. I was treated to cotton and wool,
nanocubes and microfoam—pillows with lofty ambitions, others thick as Roman
history, some that sunk my head like stone and others that cradled it like a
newborn. Those poor people walking by so vertical, as uptight as their taut
umbrellas, looking through the glass with smirks on their faces—were they laughing?
They didn’t understand. They couldn’t possibly understand the importance of
this visit, how many countries I had searched and how everything—at least my
neck and shoulders—were riding on it.
Minor
Infraction
There
it is again—that rusty well cap
poking
from your parents’ lawn like a cigarette butt.
Wake
me from this nightmare
you
think at sixteen when you hit it
with
a car called Courtesy.
Bitter
kiss of metal lips
bent
with aftertaste: chipped paint,
burnt
rubber, teenage fall from grace.
An
orange pylon sits on it today
like
a party hat or exclamation mark
so
the grandkids don’t miss it
as
they run and duck, water guns poised
hoses
deployed. Shiny wet bodies
giddy
in summer glory.
From
where you are watching
the
yard looks so tender and ripe
a
plum you could squeeze with one hand,
feel
the juices dribble down.
Maybe
it’s age making everything soft.
The
kids’ laughter takes you back
to
that day on the imagined racetrack
going
stupid fast, adrenalin spinning
voice
singing louder than the radio
blissfully
tuned out to the hazard
that
lay ahead, as only children can.
Two
feet tall, the well cap still lingers
like a kiss you don’t mind.
The sweetness of a minor infraction
no
one hurt but the car.
Herons
and Heroes
Having
seen it once, you look for it
every
time you slide the door open,
cast
your eyes on the pond: a heron
stalks
the edge, legs scissoring reeds.
The
wind swings the fuchsia
you
have been so faithful to water.
A
bloom of feathers surprise!
You
drop the tin can as birdsong floats
to
the branch above the clothesline
where
you will hang out your dreams
beside
skirts and shirts and underwear.
Just
as easily, there could be a hero
at
the edge of the pond, dynamiting reeds
to
build a road that will only connect!
A
nest of paparazzi snaps
like
crocodiles, publishing the story
in
tomorrow’s paper. A fury of letters
to
the editor, alarm bells blaring.
everybody
out!
every
thing has an antonym
every
home has a hole
and
every hope has a shadow
that
rises like smoke
to
that same balcony
choking
all your beautiful
flapping
dreams
Charlene Kwiatkowski is a Canadian writer whose debut poetry chapbook Let Us Go Then was published in 2021 with the Alfred Gustav Press. Her work has appeared in Arc, Maisonneuve, PRISM international, and elsewhere. She works at an art gallery and occasionally blogs at textingthecity.wordpress.com. Charlene lives in Coquitlam, BC with her husband, daughter, and twin sons.