The News So Far
Puffed up chests.
Balled up fists.
Taunts and tariffs.
Annexation threats.
Cyber-attacks.
Weapons ready to fire.
The week no longer sparkles
like the brightly-coloured amethyst
on my desk.
Even at the feeder threat displays—
the nuthatch displaces the chickadee,
the cardinal ousts the nuthatch,
the female cardinal waits
until he’s done.
The sparrow fluffs her feathers.
I watch the sun rise. Light
filters through the cloud-filled sky.
Only February. Only Tuesday.
And
Still, We Rise Each Morning
To
love you is to take in your fire.
A
strong rum and coke without ice
blunts
your agony for an hour.
Your
pain—
a room in the house
that is always burning.
Even
with the doors closed, flames
snake along the hallways,
scorch every corner.
On
better days, you sit at the kitchen table,
crack jokes, comment on the news
or say nothing.
Sweat dribbles from your forehead.
I touch
your flushed face.
Your Eleven Days in ICU
You
were in hospital.
Your clothes
heaped on our bedroom floor.
A friend phoned, I didn’t sit,
I paced the hallways,
searched for your glasses in every drawer.
I couldn’t remember if you’d worn them
when paramedics rushed you out
in your pajamas.
I’d hoped to find the glasses
in the lost and found
wasn’t sure if you’d ever need them again.
You were hooked up to tubes.
I paced each room
as if my steps would make you well.
I couldn’t sleep.
I called your nurse. I washed
your clothes, the sheets, the towels. Scrubbed
the places where you’d been ill.
I found your glasses buried in the sheets
in the guest bedroom where you’d slept
not wanting to wake me
with your coughing.
Driving You Home from the Hospital
Snowflakes
obscure the windshield,
the wipers barely clear the glass.
It’s silence you crave,
away from the endless beeps
of life-sustaining machines,
hurried footsteps,
patients’ grunts and cries.
You falter on the step
into the house,
grasp the railing
we’d installed in summer.
I follow just in case.
It's sleep you need
under the warmth of the winter duvet
in our king-size bed
where your feet don’t extend
beyond the mattress; you can turn
onto your side without tubes.
Mounting the stairs to the second level
I follow just in case. It’s this I missed—
the click clack of your cane
from hallway to bed.
Asleep before I cover you.
Snow gathers momentum.
Its quietness fills the room.
On the
Other Side of the Fence
Beauty
casts its light
in our garden,
in mid July, this small space a medley
of herbs and perennials,
in this mixed-up spring
plants blossomed late,
bore sparse flowers—only five red-faced
roses.
An eastern swallowtail
floats
into our garden, drifts
from bloom
to bloom
before settling on the purple
echinacea. She spreads her
dark wings,
blue tail shimmers in the sun.
I capture her in video
sucking sweetness.
You and I sip tea.
Death, too, casts its silhouette here.
Daffodils, lilacs, lilies,
peonies, weigelia,
faded celebrations.
Squirrels, chipmunks, birds will
soon nibble
ripened crab-apples, leaves will shrivel,
be absorbed by the earth
and you who’ve recently convalesced
from another serious
illness
watch goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches
peck at seed, watch a robin
flutter its wings,
flick water over its
plumage
in the bird bath.
In dream, we are new lovers
who do not yet fear
each other’s death. I find
you
on the other side of the fence
under a pear tree
whose fruit never ripens.
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Doris Fiszer is an Ottawa poet. Her publications include If I Were A River and Locked in Different Alphabets, which was a finalist for the 2021 Archibald Lampman Award. She has published two chapbooks, The Binders and Sasanka (Wild Flower). Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies across Canada and the United States.