When I Was Young and In My Prime (27 page)

New Year's Day, 1932

As I said everything is going fast
and where a poor guy knows it first
 

is when he starts counting the few slippery greenbacks
 

which he has earned by pulling four horses
 

and the implement
 

and pulling cows teats of course.
 

About the hired girl Jean Wilson there is little to write
 

though I know plenty
 

about her. All I can say is Youth
 

will have its fling and she certainly had hers
 

and how. Poor kid in a way I feel sorry for her but

oh well who am I to take life serious I'm free
 

in a free country
 

so here goes—whoopee

for 1932!

What does that mean Grandpa?

What? Eh?

That curse you always say. What does it mean?

Come again?

You know,
ay-ay-ay, matoushka ri-nanka,
or whatever it is.

Yessir and what about it?

What does it
mean
?

Damned if I could say now.
 

Oh come on. You must know what it means.

Of course I know what the goddamn thing means. It's just to try to switch it over and get it across to you what it means is a whole other kettle of fish goddammit.
 

Just give me a general idea then.

Alright, alrighty. If it means that much to you. Let's see. Close as I can come is something to do with your mother, a goat, and a bolt of lightning.
 

Your mother a goat and a bolt of lightning?
 

That's right. You do the math.
 

things buried with us (2)

1
 

Lately James and I have been eating only soup and bread.
 

Funny what happens when the hunger
 

to be simple is whetted daily;
 

after a while it stops being dull.

2
 

He rowed before he knew me, and I love this
 

odd and unimportant detail (come to me
 

from that time like someone else's keepsake):
 

rowers face backwards so he'll
 

always have starboard and port reversed.
 

How my head is
 

hushed and my skin strokes
 

hot at the thought of his
 

unknown hands at
 

dawn on those oars.
 

3
 

When we fight we
 

go from room to
 

room, closing doors
 

behind us, then
 

opening them again
 

moments later.

4
 

I notice we put on our t-shirts differently:

I shake my arms into the
 

sleeves first then slip my
 

head through the
 

neck hole as quickly as
 

possible so as not to
 

miss a thing.

He lassoes the whole thing over his head and pulls it down.
 

Then he pushes his arms up through, as if climbing
 

out of a manhole.

5
 

Sometimes when I hug him around the neck he lifts

me just a little to his height,

my back crackles into alignment

and then he sets me down again,

taller.

There's a man who travels
 

the sidewalks of my neighbourhood
 

in a wheelchair pulled by huskies.
 

I see him often at intersections,
 

two dogs panting, waiting
 

for the light to change.
 

At the exact moment it turns
 

green they spring
 

forward so if you didn't know better
 

you'd be confused
 

(do they trigger the light,
 

or the light,
 

their movement?).
 

They pass the dishevelled man who stands
 

barefoot in undone sneakers no matter what
 

the weather, one leg of his track pants
 

lodged up around his shin,
 

the other, ragged
 

under his heel.
 

He stands at the same
 

intersection all day long,
 

conducting traffic,
 

urging the cars forward and back
 

in perfect unison with the traffic lights.
 

This, perhaps, is as likely as anything else to
 

turn out to be

what makes the world go around.

The man in the wheelchair calls
yee
and
haw
 

for right and left,
 

speaking the same language
 

my grandfather spoke behind his plough horses
 

once upon a time.

As they glide away

you can almost hear
 

the earth turning in response,
 

the
shshsh
of sled runners over snow,
 

can almost bear
 

to call the city home.

 

Someone has tapped a maple tree
 

in the parkette down the street.
 

I think now I'll be able to sleep at night knowing
 

somewhere nearby there is an apartment,
 

windows fogged with steam—
 

shshshsh

—when it's all boiled down there will be just enough
 

to fill a teacup,

a bird's nest,
 

a bell.

One garbage day
 

my neighbour Connie
 

spotted an old leather couch on the curb
 

on her way to trade in her empties—
 

the springs in the couch were
 

shot, so she skinned it.

Connie is Ojibway,
 

makes dream catchers

with couch leather and seagull feathers
 

dyed eagle.
 

I'm standing at the intersection, waiting

for the streetcar. I see her pass
 

with her bundle buggy, waving.
 

I wave back, aware I'm only
 

human but hoping I have the human
 

touch. When you say the word
 

human, do you mean it
 

as excuse or incantation? Ask me
   

and I am torn

between the two,

again and again my head

turned by how we make
 

do
             
on the way

to trade in
 

our empties.

Well, we got out of doing the dishes, didn't we Grandma?

Although you always said you liked doing dishes, right?

I know what place
 

I should be now
         
I think

It's okay Grandma, you're fine right here. Just relax. Okay? We'll go back in when they call us for pie. Okay?

(pointing to the ploughed garden) like that

(silence)

I love watching the leaves fall.
 

You like fall, don't you Grandma?

(silence)

You're looking at the wind chimes.
 

Do you like the wind chimes Grandma?

if you call it right

Call it right?

I should name it

You should name it?

I should

but I don't think it wants to be named

(silence)

Fall's my favourite season.
 

Do you have a favourite season Grandma?

What's your favourite season?

I don't think

there's any pie left
 

for me

I need to leave now Grandpa. I have to catch my train so I can be back in the city by nightfall. Make sure the nurses are good to you. And don't let the doctors do anything to you that you don't want them to do.