rough

i will not allow my body to suffer any longer.

a manhandled baby girl, barely three when he touched me.
a mind ravaged by watching my mother fall under the beatings dealt by
every man we ever lived with.
a volatile teen trying to make the scene
too fat to have the boyfriend i really wanted,
starved into roller rink fainting fits
puking into bar toilets, fake id falling on tile
struggling among sadists, and rapists, and the evil faces of highschool girls.
pregnant at 16 and miscarrying at 17 and the boy who made it happen lied about loving me.
suicide attempt,
promiscuity,
veneral disease and the doctor's distaste as he wrote the rx.
i went to bed drunk with an ex, and he turned my beautiful 19 year old breasts black and blue
my first abortion - the nurses looked at me like the highschool girls did,
the doctor took money from me to keep it off my medical record.
i took morphine and speed
acid, and mushrooms.
i drank til i threw up, night after night, and laid silent under men
while they lied about loving me.
i gave up the ghost to my husband and he fought my demons with me.
at once, my ravaged flesh was kissed, my torn-up mind soothed
my body rehabilitated, smoothed over, and made fertile
growing children in my womb and out they came
my breasts astounded me
making milk
and babies grew to sturdy children.
now i dress this body as well as i can, and keep it clean
now i feed it what it asks for,
i watch it grow softer and lower
i see small lines appear
around my eyes and mouth.
soon my hair will be grey
and i will be untouchable,
and you would never know how ravished this old body has been
by time, and this and that
by him and her
by them and you,
by me.
i'll live untouched and grateful for it.

i am going to run away in bare feet and let my hair grow wild;
i'll never comb it or wash my face.
i'll learn to hunt and listen for water and i'll grow my nails long.

trees and i will sing the same songs to stars and nightbirds alive or dead.
and in the dark when wolves howl alongside us
i'll sleep, not fear.

i'll nurse my wounds with grey-green moss let my eyes grow mild.
no cups to hold my river water
my mouth below the surface will gulp and frighten fishes there.

and when it rains i'll cry too; in every drop reflected four times.
facet one: i was small. facet two: i was mother.
facet three: i was hurt. facet four: i cried with you.

dirty

i hit the dream jackpot. naked hot tub party with a big crush of mine. he got too hot in the tub and stepped out and kind of leaned back on his elbows. his body is so long and lean. he's at least 6'2 or 6'3". the air was full of steam and it was rising off his body in waves and i climbed out too and just kind of straddled his lap and said, "let's pretend to have sex." (i know! pretend? dream me is so weird.) and he said, "ok!" and so we were doing this thing where we were kissing but not touching our lips to each other and running our hands over one another's body's without making contact and it was very hot and very, very strange. now i want to try it with someone.

we had gone camping at the base of a mountain, i think out on the similkameen river. the time was the present and it was cold, a light dusting of snow on the ground, and getting colder. the day was grey. misha took the kids on an afternoon hike and i used my time alone at the campsite to sit back in my camping chair, keep warm by the blazing fire, and smoke some reefer. the woods around me were completely still, the river was rushing by in a muted roar and tiny icy flakes of snow were falling all around me. it felt perfect.

suddenly, a cop car pulled up next to our van. i panicked and tried to nonchalantly hide the weed and the pipe but there really was nowhere for them to go without it looking very conspicuous; so i decided to just put them under my chair, and act cool. the cop got out of his cruiser and walked directly over to me.

"hey," he said.

"hello, officer. is there some problem?"

"no, no problem. i met your husband up on the road there. he mentioned you'd be here." i waited for him to volunteer more information but he was just looking all around the campsite as though he'd lost something. he looked a little like the farmer out of the movie "babe". finally he glanced under my camping chair and spotted the stash.

"ahhh," he said, grinning and rubbing his hands together in near-glee.

"oh, uh, uh..." i stuttered, as he reached below me and pulled the pipe and baggy out. "i...uh...uh..."

he just looked at me and shook his head. i was sure i was busted. to my shock, however, he opened up the baggy and loaded himself a huge bowl of weed. i sat there with my mouth agape, watching the cop toke it up with my stash. after he'd had a few hits he said, through a lungful of smoke, "misha said it'd be cool. it's cool, right?"

my mouth still hanging open i nodded mutely at him. he coughed and tried to pass me the pipe but i held up my hand and just shook my head. "no. no thanks," i replied. "i never touch the stuff."

at that point, misha returned to the site and he and the cop had a couple of laughs, clapping each other on the shoulder. the cop said, "hey, thanks a lot, meesh." misha nodded and the cop continued, "i just wanna warn you guys, environment canada says a massive arctic front is moving in. it's going to drop in temperature another fifteen or twenty degrees in the next day. you won't be warm enough out here. you'd better head home. the whole of the lower mainland is going to freeze over."


suddenly we found ourselves on the 30th floor of a highrise in downtown vancouver, overlooking the entire city. the cop had been right. everything was coated in a thick crust of hard ice. the streets were deserted and everything was silent. we stood on the balconey and inhaled the subzero air, astonished.

"look," misha said, pointing at the harbour, "the ocean..."

it was frozen solid. the sky was an ominous grey. i was shivering and wanted to go inside. just as i turned, i saw something coming towards us, through the air. i did a double take when i realized it was a dolphin, flying directly at us, tail down and head up, using it's flippers to propel it forward, and it's tail to steer. it was making a clicking noise as it approached.

"what. the. fuck." i said, tugging misha's sleeve and pointing at the dolphin. it was only a few meters away. misha stared too, agape.

the dolphin came right up to the balconey and i reached out to touch it's cold and rubbery nose. it prodded my hand back and beeped at me playfully. misha was laughing and saying, "i guess because the ocean froze, the dolphins had to learn to fly!" i was simply astonished and moved by what was happening. i held my arms out to the dolphin as if it hug it. it moved into my embrace and i held it tight, like a baby. i wriggled in my arms as though it never wanted to leave and i hauled it over the edge of the balconey and then misha hugged it too and we stood there for a long time, nuzzling it and trying to warm it up. it didn't seem to want to leave, but i felt that if it didn't find some unfrozen stretch of ocean soon there were going to be problems.

"we have no fish, we have no salt water," i was saying to misha.

"the tub," he said, "we'll fill it. and we can go buy some tuna. it will work."

i pondered this for a few minutes.

"ok," i said, doubtfully, and pressing my forehead up against the chattering dolphin's nose. "but the dog is gonna be so jealous."

i was laying on a sidewalk looking up at the trees and sunny autumn sky and a skunk came trundling out of the bushes from the house i was laying in front of and crawled on top of my body and nuzzled me sweetly, and when i pet her, she purred, and i thought to myself that the stink wasn't really so bad once you breathed it for a while.