Vinyl Resonance

When I Was Nine

The station wagon broke down on the Coquihalla, near

Meritt on the hottest day of the year.

Dad was swearing, Mom sweating and quiet.

A generous truck driver offered us a ride to the nearest

town and gave me a warm Barq’s which I sipped at politely

even though I hate root beer.

October

Sharp Canadian autumns
lend themselves to the baking of apple pies.

I sit coring crisp galas
by the tens of dozens,
across the table, wide steel bowls
filled to brimming.

She places her wedding ring
on the windowsill-
my mother, rolling out the pastry,
tucking stray hairs behind her ear
with a floured hand.

To me, then, my mother was gigantic-
five-foot-eight in bare feet she towered over
the butter and eggs, the crack of shells
A queen’s judgement,

Goddess of salt and cinnamon!
Earthbound in a thick white apron
which she tied around herself like armour.

This is where I learned magic:
kitchen apprentice to my mother,
her mother; reciting incantations still
foreign to me at nine years old:

Cups, tablespoons, pats and dashes,
Churned, whipped, folded, beaten.

How dangerous and exciting!

With practiced movements,
my grandmother, practical and shamanistic
showed me the way to pinch the pie crusts-
decorative scalloped edges to crown our efforts,
the amen to an afternoon of prayer.

My grandmother, who had every recipe memorized
and never used standard measurements.

When the pies emerged emerged an hour later
from the 400 degree oven, my mother
would remove the steaming pans,
fillings still bubbling, miasmic and turbulent.

With the heat scorching my too-close inquisition, I would watch this
and think privately in my child’s mind:
How violent it must be to be a woman!

I betray myself; some understanding 
of the moon’s influence on a heavy tide
is no aide to the deep which settles
dark and measured below my aching ribs.

The red ship rides a warm Southern 
current with news of a coming storm. 
Bearing in on the thick water she cuts a straight, 
low course, quiet under a rocking moon.

The tilt and keel of her close hull harbors no 
slick rats or itching lepers. She carries only
the leaden cargo of a cautious woman.

I hold no intimate discourse with blood, and 
the sea and I are only formal acquaintances 
with a common tide. We share nothing else 
but a wave in my name: a bitter swell.

_{Evelyn G.}

Under the waves, from the dark

wet places, recover me. Heave 

me from the weeds dripping,

my lungs  shut tight like clams.

Pry me open! If I will come 

from the waters and gasp, lying

against dark stones and spluttering

salt water, you must clear the sand

from my throat.

You must dig faster than I can burrow.

-Evelyn Gendron