poem || rob mclennan

Birthday poem for Gwendolyn Guth,

                        The building in the shape

                        of a jaw. Your certainty.

                                    Hillary Gravendyk, Harm       

Now forty-five,                        a suitcase

packed with linens, stylus                    birch-bark,

poems. A pocket

laced with vinyl, pressed. On Beechwood Avenue,

overlay and arrows, oscillating.

Such sentiment,           a kind of hunger. Egg shells,

mark their signature. Cupcake shops,

the Esso station, an inch         above the letter. You were

not always here, a modulated spiral groove,

that starts                    at periphery,

and ends                      near the centre. Suspended,

up-end.                                    Once, you had

no solid foot, no leg

to stand. The body, ever                      finds its nature,

needle,             surface

contact,                       when we choose

no longer                     to prevent. Hold back, a slate

of cell-grey stars,                     a chronicle

of extended drama.

This is neither warning,                       nor

stuttered underside. You turn, you turn,

remark, refrain. Such               perfect pitch.   Await

extended play.