a thin line between Read online

  a drip of soul slithering away with every erasure

  deleting words

  revision

  rewriting

  still I think that everything is editing

  or I did for a while when my head felt nothing else

  people editing their lives

  those snowplows edit the street, scraping it clean

  the gardener edits the ground, please no green disturbances on this path

  dank u wel

  but it’s strange because then you start to edit your life and the people around you

  and people don’t like that

  especially not your husband

  you shouldn’t bring your work home with you, says michiel

  right true but all of us do

  especially the artists, those prickly characters who go around with their heads

  knotted tightly around their left knees

  tap them on the shoulder and they jump because you’ve disturbed

  their quiet churning

  internal

  the grooves in space

  kept light kept still

  until touch softens the grip

  a cardinal line wrapped in tight incisive eddies

  in air instead of water

  craig says you’re looking through me, like you don’t even see me

  _____________________

  we sit around the table in fresnoy

  the table that’s split down the middle

  michiel made it when he was in indonesia

  he says it split in half when my marriage to caroline fell apart

  every morning we trundle down the spiral staircase, four floors high

  the fresh pain is waiting

  we mumble a mixture of good morning and goeiemorgen

  and here it is

  another sunny day

  _____________________

  I went to todd’s house and tried to win him back

  with my short skirt and brown stockings

  and the mixed cd

  perhaps decaying in a landfill now

  in eastern ontario

  it always seemed worth it back then, every inch of romance

  squeeze it out of me, baby, ooze it all over the floor

  that was the name of the feel-it-all game

  on the bike, on the canals, on the cobbles

  we’re all bobbing heads

  and there I am

  stopped in an intersection making everyone hesitate

  the pedestrian and the driver and the fietser(s)

  hesitation is a death wish, steven says

  the whole system breaks down

  the understanding

  which is

  that we all just go and never stop unless we’re sure we’re going to get hit

  which is

  my understanding of the understanding

  on the streets of amsterdam

  _____________________

  on the news desk

  jason says you’re a poet

  after a smooth finagling of words for a mother’s day spread

  haven’t you noticed

  headline writing is poetry

  you see remembering

  you see all the lives

  you see lost to labels

  you see the gall of the gulls

  mavis gallant the difference between journalism and fiction

  is the difference between without and within

  you see I, too, am a door

  you see I move

  you see I swing

  you see I stop

  you see I let someone in

  you see I shut someone out

  you see I am slammed

  you see I am hurt

  you see I am hollow

  you see You were a door

  you see You were the connector

  you see You were the opener and the closer

  you see You were the speaker and the silence

  you see You were here

  you see You were here in this house

  you see You were not

  you see You were gone

  you see I, too, am a door

  you see I separate space

  you see I am space

  you see I am a thin line between

  I sometimes think that I can’t go back there, to without, when I’ve been within

  even though within comes from without and without often comes from within

  _____________________

  how beautiful is

  a man whistling a tune on his bicycle

  in this

  this place of moist mornings misty and murky

  which is more theirs than it ever will be mine

  we have tulips on the table

  purple and pink and pink and white

  firm and handsome tall and sturdy

  and then

  suddenly

  droopy and dreary

  wide-eyed and bursting

  falling

  anne warned me

  at a certain point all the tulips go crazy

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  nothing is untouched, m says

  everything is designed

  every hill carved

  every open space

  open for use

  open for a purpose

  the purpose of staying above water, mostly

  people live in basements

  actually they’re under water, says c

  _____________________

  I try to read between the lines

  there it is

  my mother

  my hands that wanted to be constructive and now also have to feed a

  previous marriage’s children

  like some obligation

  those children were

  and maybe a little joy

  (the line about the yo-yo

  the child playing with the yo-yo)

  otherwise

  what a goddamn nuisance those children were

  couldn’t even change their own diapers

  BUT BUT he was a MONUMENT (a monument?) to dutch literature

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  _____________________

  julie doesn’t want to teach english forever

  all the lesson plans all the classes

  so repetitive

  there’s nothing new anymore

  and at home things are falling apart

  jon and brother bata are starting a pizza business in the basement

  and jon thinks he has to spend the whole day there

  twelve till twelve

  waiting for the phone to ring

  the kids are upstairs

  julie is cooking and cleaning and putting them to bed

  a shower or a bath, you choose, she says

  then a few moments to herself

  to smoke on the porch

  wash the dishes

  watch fox life

  then it starts again

  the life of

  the invisible mom

  constant movement

  cyclical

  lyrical

  a continuous line, looping

  like the line we move along

  (little white blood cells in a big vein)

  on a daily basis

  _____________________

  sometimes there is nothing left to associate

  it’s all new

  or is it?

  glenn would say all things come from somewhere

  all learning is based on other learning

  that’s how we grow

  standing still

  on our mats

  a mountain

  a tree

  we waver and a branch falls and we are reduced to dirt

  yours impermanently

  sometimes on the way we get stuck, a knot forms

  and the movement is delayed
br />   slower

  tighter

  those dreams

  with heat

  they all go inside and turn naked

  other times the movement is easier and we flow

  higher

  peaking red

  before heading downward again

  the end of an exhale

  the most present of presence

  the most here of Here

  (unable to think unable to worry unable to deny)

  a delicate rhythm

  within the unending roundabout

  the idea that, perhaps

  you can zip through the path, busily

  or you can see the path as a greater structure, with no end no destination

  only conscious movement

  flowing through both rigidity and flexibility

  with one exception

  within flexibility

  there is capacity

  for change

  that’s what we like to do with art

  be on the edge of what is possible says michiel

  _____________________

  six months to absorb a city’s shape

  fill up on its secrets

  the tepid smell of manure on a tuesday morning

  the flashy green of new moss on a boisterous tree

  the lone whistle of a tall blond man on a bicycle

  seeping simmering in my ears

  in a museum in a hallway on a windowsill

  I crunch granola

  he says unfortunately, no, you can’t eat that here, because of the mouses

  this is what the city tells me

  beware of mouses

  beware

  it also says I’ll see you the tomorrow after tomorrow

  when

  cutting cold and the best sun

  make way for mist and murk

  and I stand

  reading about holland’s fine grey nature

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  (pause)

  _____________________

  I wonder if I ever knew what grandparents meant

  I didn’t miss them

  only I did, sort of I’d see romana with tom and he’d be painting

  romana had that bowl-cut hairdo

  tom’s long greys

  straight and dangling

  it always feels weird for me to go to these things with my mother

  when it is actually about my father

  it always occurs, that my lips open

  and instead of being from this side of the family

  I am from that side of the family

  I try to distinguish the two

  maybe one crazy, one not

  I sidle up to my brother and we are two, two sides

  and he’s not crazy

  at least not that I can tell

  it is always about my father and his father and his life, peeling away the I’s

  layers of one family left to dry like raisins on our windowsills

  it seems I am here to sort out their mess

  here with my mother

  wishing I’d unfurl into my father

  who’s thinking of his father, in careful happiness

  other kids, james and james, we’ll call them

  say their grandmothers fed them strange things

  like stale chips and cheese and pickles on hamburger buns

  mmmm

  oma noppen (on the other side)

  would come over and bring us werther originals and king mints

  that was every couple of years

  intermittent grandparenting

  m says she left me, all alone

  m says with those crazy parents

  _____________________

  anu when you have two or three daughters in india you cry

  why

  why cry

  when saris could simmer the cement floor with colours that tingle

  the insides of eyes

  when long glistening strands whisper behind creamy cheekbones

  when weeks float by and all you’ve talked about are the intricacies

  of love

  and love lost

  we hear about it later

  that she died on the highway

  bert wanted to exit

  exit wilfully

  so he asks his wife

  sitting beside him

  if the path is clear to the right

  margreetje looks

  says ja

  shoes left outside a temple

  so bert veers the van

  and then and there it is over

  small movements of faith

  no clear path

  no path cleared

  (forward twenty thirty back)

  the car hits the van

  she dies and bert is left alone

  jasmine flowers

  offered

  rose water

  holy milk

  sweet rice

  received

  alone again

  inhaling the smoke

  like the day his mother left him

  a red dot on your third eye

  disappeared

  hands in prayer position

  absorbed

  ganesh will keep you close

  by the story of their lives

  _____________________

  his structure loses its feathery warmth

  his crumpled papers wander down to ground-up stomped-on footpaths

  next time you see him

  he is

  paring down

  reducing

  exchanging his blanket for bare skin

  now he’s a skeleton showing off his transparency

  now he’s a window opening to his background

  the bricks the right angles the wood from his body

  when he is broken he heals his wound by covering up

  curling

  protecting

  when he is whole he sways and stays

  the force pushing him to the west this year

  slowly he becomes lopsided

  you think he’s reaching out

  reaching over

  reaching down

  to flavoured particles on trodden turf

  he might be

  he might be extending himself for our use

  or

  he might be bending his curved spine

  for the sake of a good stretch

  _____________________

  how could they be good grandparents, says michiel

  they weren’t good parents

  they rarely saw my kids

  the smell of parsley reminds me of my mother

  I want to keep with the same taste atmosphere, m says

  that way there are no discrepancies

  in the aromatic enlightenment we seek

  on the plates before us

  you’ll see what I mean

  _____________________

  mom says

  my family was so not a family

  not enough connection to us

  since I was six I made my lunch

  and went to school myself and dragged my brother to another school

  one has to see things with perspective

  it’s not easy to be a parent

  we would come home and fried would stay in the attic making pots

  and now that I think of it

  that was okay

  today it’s more like that

  women do their own thing have careers

  _____________________

  how odd is that

  I would have loved for you to...

  for this and that

  in the world of without

  and well I am supposed to be in the world of within

  where without is a mere notion of past and perhaps future

  and yet it creeps in nonchalantly

  without a care

  without a sympathetic glance

  and I gulp it in

 
drink it impatiently

  as if somehow my life is supported by its very nature

  I made the first move

  but he unleashed the L word

  and in matters of business you must realize

  this is very rare

  so I drank it in

  and of course

  it lured me in

  lured me back

  and my suspicious cynical side believes higher powers intervened

  and my easy-going flow-with-the-movements-of-the-universal agenda

  believes what will be will be

  and I in particular have very little say at all

  how I ping back and forth

  ping back and forth

  ping back and forth

  I say what if all the buildings looked like frank gehry’s?

  whimsical dancers on a concrete stage

  outdoor and indoor

  see-through and sufficiently glossed over

  you’d get drunk visually michiel says

  next I say undo undone undid

  and you can seep back in slowly

  some words will be nonsense

  others will be sheeeeeeeeeeeeer works of art

  as we all expect

  you expect

  you expect me to be such a thing of beauty

  and I am only an insect

  sargeant p insect

  waiting for your approval

  waiting for your inspection

  or shall the insect inspect

  insect inspection coming through

  here we come here we go watch your hats and your eyes and your turtle doves

  lingering overhead

  this could be huge

  we could write the same word over and over and over and over and over

  interior interior interior interior interior

  already I’m bored and the computer says stop

  it puts red squiggly lines underneath

  a green one too and I’m supposed to think this is wrong

  stop it stop it stop it

  do things correctly

  or else

  or else or else or else

  or what?