Embarking

All the way to Jerusalem I travelled
alone photographed David’s mosque
rode an Arab’s horse
to Petra city of red rocks
women scarved in black prayed
in the church of the Our Father
walked the road to the cross

All the way unseen, God followed
jingled coins in my blue jeans’ pocket
while I bartered in the market place
for an Aramaic cross to wear
around my neck sat across
from me at a marble table
tasted goat’s cheese sipped a glass
of Galilean wine in Bethlehem
just beyond the souvenir shops
a Bedouin appeared swathed
in white down to his sandals proffered
coffee camel rides Arabian sweets
pointed to blue window frames
everywhere For good luck
We have a saying here there’s the blue of the sky
blue of the sea blue of a woman’s eyes
He looked straight into my black pupils

But all your women’s eyes are brown
Mine too He winked
offered me his arm but I hung back
not knowing all the while
God is a laughing Bedouin

Crucifixion

Who held Mary
when they took Jesus
from the cross
No arms strong enough
no voice soft enough
no cloth cool enough
no song sweet enough
to bear the burden sorrow
nothing stopped her tears
And where was God
the father
when Jesus hung his head and died
No storm loud enough
no sky dark enough
no waves high enough
no quake big enough
to bear the burden sorrow
nothing stopped God’s tears

Make My Coffin Wide

when I die make my coffin
wide so I can spread my legs
that’s how I spent most of my life

spread your legs tuck in your butt
point your toes flex and point
bend your knees that’s it ladies one, two three

spread your legs stretch and bend
clean the toilet hang up the clothes
sew and mend unwind the hose
that Harry forgot to put away last summer

when you’re tired spread your legs
in a hot tub filled with bubbles
that is after you’ve scrubbed it
’cause nobody else will

spread your legs c’mon Honey open wide
sorry about last night what’s the matter forget the fight

spread your legs I can see his head
breathe deeply just like I said
don’t push that’s it relax
good girl

spread your legs a little bit more
this may hurt a tiny sore
just like a bee sting
don’t move your legs relax

spread your legs first one then the other
it’s easier that way we don’t want you to fall between
the bed and the stretcher
we’ll support your shoulder
just slide over that’s it good girl

when I die make my coffin wide
so I can stretch out on either side
point my toes tuck in my pelvis
breathe deeply count to four
relax and spread my legs

The rain kept falling. At the edge of the lake, slender reeds and bushes lifted their wet branches like the arms of the drowning. The road to Fung Jim Chow’s laundry was no longer a road but more like a trough of water from which donkeys and horses, tired from lifting their feet out of the muck, could drink. Their riders spurred them on to the ridge above the road, narrow track of rotting leaves. It rained and rained and Reverend Anthony Naylor, the missionary from England, looked out over his little congregation on Sunday morning and said, “I’ve never seen so much rain, even in London in the Spring.” He made jokes about building an arc if it kept up. Even when it stopped pouring, clouds shrouded the top of the hills and threatened imprisonment between the slate-laden sky above and the curtains of fog below. There was no escape from this gray purgatory.

The lake, surrounded by mountains, was deep and treacherous and prone to sudden and violent storms. It measured about thirty miles long and was divided into two sections by a large peninsula of rock. The largest settlement, the Foot, was at the southern end of the lake. By the early nineteen twenties there were a few permanent buildings clustered on the shore: two hotels which competed with each other for the rich tourists from England, a somewhat disorganized school, and a few stores dotted along the main street.

Across the lake and to the north, stood an isolated logging camp called Inlet Bay. It was assessable only by water, a four hour boat ride between the Foot and the camp. Anthony was in the process of building a church at Inlet Bay and in a few short months the community would see its first school.

Like most of the settlements in the area the houses floated on the water. Little gable-roofed cabins made of sturdy two by fours were built on rafts so they could move easily from one lumbering site to another. On a sunny day a stranger coming upon the floating community would have thought he had found a mystical village, shimmering in the mist of the surrounding rain forest, a Camelot or Avalon. The houses were surrounded by a platform and were connected to the land by a wooden walkway. However, only yesterday in the worst of the storm, one of them floated away from its moorings because the guy lines were rusted and they broke. Some houses stood firmly on land: a grocery store, two hotels that competed with each other for the rich tourists from England, a post office and the Anglican Church.

Jim Chow, his shoulders rounded and frail, face wizened, carefully wrapped the clean shirts in newspapers as he prepared for delivery. He hoped he could borrow someone’s rowboat since the road through the village was flooded and his parcel to heavy to balance on the handlebars of his bicycle, even if the way was passable. It was Thursday. In anticipation of a weekend in Vancouver, the loggers had given him their best clothes to be cleaned and pressed: trousers worn at the knees, shirts frayed at the cuffs, buttons missing which he had painstakingly sewn back on. He knew the clothing would be returned more worn than before, covered with vomit or blood, pockets or collars torn and dangling, holes out of the knees which he would patch again. But they always returned, their money gone.

He fumbled while trying to tie string around the last parcel. His fingers, usually quick, moved heavily, awkwardly, as if they wanted to undo the parcel and shake the dress and put it out on a clothes line in the sun, as Megan probably would have done if he were alive.

Edith Weatherstone had brought the frock to him. The bodice was blood stained, not badly, because the bullet had gone clean through Megan’s temple and the blood had trickled down her neck and over her left shoulder on to the floor. They had found her before the blood had dried and caked.

“Shot herself,” said Mrs. Weatherstone. Her voice, almost as deep as a man’s broke. She knew it and tried to gain her composure by drumming her fingers impatiently on the counter.

“Who?” He had to look up at her because she was quite tall.

“Megan. Shot herself” Jim didn’t respond, so the woman thinking he didn’t understand put it another way. “She’s dead.” Jim blinked. He felt his Adam’s apple jerk up and down in his throat and that was the only sign he made that he had heard the dreadful news. “Reverend Naylor wants her dressed in this to send her back to her mother. Funeral’s in Victoria.” Mrs. Weatherstone brandished the dress at him, shaking it in his face as if it was his fault. “Oh no,” he said. He steadied himself against the counter.

“Are you all right?” He wants it to be ready by tonight.” She tossed the dress on the counter.

“So sorry,” he said.

“Yes. We’re all sorry.” She wheeled about and with her back turned to him muttered, “Very sorry.” Without putting on her umbrella, she went out into the pouring rain. That was the longest conversation they had ever had.

When Melanie was really honest with herself, she admitted that she had probably loved Jacque’s acreage more than she loved him. He picked her up after work.  She watched for the shiny pale blue sixties Buick he had inherited from his father and fixed up.  He drove it with a flourish around the circular driveway of the hospital where all the nurses, on a smoking break, and the three vice-presidents gazing out their big picture windows, could see.  She wished he would get out of the car and open the door for her.  All the way to the acreage he held her hand and said how much he had missed her.  She hadn’t expected passion so late in life.  She was used to going to Christmas parties unaccompanied, or warning her women friends, all of them single, that her birthday was coming.  For some reason, she felt as if she didn’t deserve his attention, but that his love had come to her anyway, through some kind of miraculous divine grace.

Usually, he dropped into the supermarket for groceries.  He made an exotic shrimp wok dinner.  Shopping together was fun, not hectic and tiring as it was with her two kids.  She loved the drive to his acreage most of all.  Once they had left the city and gone out on highway 14, she felt like she used to as a child when her mother took her to toy land to see Santa.  She rode a little train through a magical village replete with elves, candy canes and coloured giant snowflakes.  In the middle of the scene stood stuffed animals, spotted fawns, reindeer and camels that swayed their heads from side to side.  Sitting beside Jacques as they drove out of the city, she watched the landscape open up into flat white squares like a giant chessboard.

At one spot in their journey, Llamas surprised her.  They stood in a farmer’s field like the exotic stuffed of the magical village she remembered.  Huddled under a tree, they braced themselves against the cold.  The gentle contours of their backs blackened against the bright colours of the prairie sunset.  As it receded over the horizon, the sun seemed to get bigger and brighter us if to make up for its sinking.  The white snow banked around the llamas’ slender legs turned orange.

“He breed ‘em,”  Jacques sai.  “Sells ‘em to the zoo.  They eat a lot less than cows.”