Read Two Bowls of Milk Online

Authors: Stephanie Bolster

Two Bowls of Milk

BOOKS BY STEPHANIE BOLSTER

White Stone: The Alice Poems
(1998)
Two Bowls of Milk
(1999)

Copyright © 1999 by Stephanie Bolster

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Bolster, Stephanie
    Two bowls of milk

Poems.
ISBN 0-7710-1557-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-55199-654-7

I. Title

PS8553.O479T96 1999    C811’.54    C99-930013-X
PR9199.3.B64T96 1999

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

McClelland & Stewart Inc.
The Canadian Publishers
481 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M
5
G
2
E
9

v3.1

For Patrick Leroux

CONTENTS

poems from paintings by Jean Paul Lemieux

poems in the National Gallery of Canada

This title contains long lines of poetry. The line of characters below indicates approximately the longest line in the text:

cold winds already lifting the hairs of your arm – you’ll forget your feet,

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COME TO THE EDGE
 

Come to the edge of the barn the property really begins there
,

you see things defining themselves, the hoofprints left by sheep,

the slope of the roof, each feather against each feather on each goose.

You see the stake with the flap of orange plastic that marks

the beginning of real. I’m showing you this because

I’m sick of the way you clutch the darkness with your hands,

seek invisible fenceposts for guidance, accost spectres.

I’m coming with you because I fear you’ll trip

over the string that marks the beginning, you’ll lie across the border

and with that view – fields of intricate grain and chiselled mountains,

cold winds already lifting the hairs of your arm – you’ll forget your feet,

numb in straw and indefinite dung, and be unable to rise, to walk farther.

My fingers weave so close between yours because I’ve been there

before, I know the relief of everything, how it eases the mind to learn

shapes it hasn’t made, how it eases the feet to know the ground

will persist. See those two bowls of milk, just there,

on the other side of the property line, they’re for the cats

that sometimes cross over and are seized by a thirst, they’re

to wash your hands in. Lick each finger afterwards. That will be

your first taste, and my finger tracing your lips will be the second.

MANY HAVE WRITTEN POEMS ABOUT BLACKBERRIES

But few have gotten at the multiplicity of them, how each berry

composes itself of many dark notes, spherical,

swollen, fragile as a world. A blackberry is the colour of a painful

bruise on the upper arm, some internal organ

as yet unnamed. It is shaped to fit

the tip of the tongue, to be a thimble, a dunce cap

for a small mouse. Sometimes it is home to a secret green worm

seeking safety and the power of surprise. Sometimes it plunks

into a river and takes on water.

Fishes nibble it.

The bushes themselves ramble like a grandmother’s sentences,

giving birth to their own sharpness. Picking the berries

must be a tactful conversation

of gloved hands. Otherwise your fingers will bleed

the berries’ purple tongue; otherwise thorns

will pierce your own blank skin. Best to be on the safe side,

the outside of the bush. Inside might lurk

nests of yellowjackets; rabid bats; other,

larger hands on the same search.

The flavour is its own reward, like kissing the whole world

at once, rivers, willows, bugs and all, until your swollen

lips tingle. It’s like waking up

to discover the language you used to speak

is gibberish, and you have never really

loved. But this does not matter because you have

married this fruit, mellifluous, brutal, and ripe.

SEAWOLF INSIDE ITS OWN DORSAL FIN
Seawolf Inside Its Own Dorsal Fin
, Robert Davidson, 1983. Screenprint.

I sleep in the red of my rising

arc, curled tight and finned

within fin, rocked by black

water I rock. I learn this one part

of myself, each degree

of its curve, how the water

foams against warm skin.

My fin learns me, the thing

it is part of but does not

belong to. We make each other,

my fin and myself, myself

and the taut water.

When my fin breaks the sea’s

skin, through shut eyes I glimpse

wave within wave, stone

within stone, I surge

through all the layers,

my own incessant crest.

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE CONSERVATORY

This dome opened

the year of my birth.

My whole life stands

on this wooden bridge, arched

over water.

Below, plump and golden

fish ripen.

Foliage, hushed as silk, encroaches.

ASSORTED FLORA
Nasturtiums

Always plural,

rampant.

Edible because

something must be finished off,

your unflinching

ruffled orange and gold,

your tart leaves.

Even aphids will not

do the trick.

Even inclement weather.

Even in October

you assert yourselves,

outdoing the leaves,

the smug pumpkins.

Iris

Your spine is a secret grief.

Rooted in inconstant mud,

you manage to stand, proud

though purple marks the perfect

white of your throat.

But cut, left

alone in a vase, you will lean

away from light, shrink

into your crippled shadow.

Beach Sweet Pea

Tenacious as cat’s claws

you cling to the salt

grit, mark your place

in roots and the innermost

pink of anemone’s

tentacles. Beside that dropped

starfish with its guts to the sky,

that branch bleached

and sea-worn,

you are the one

who holds brine between your toes,

tide in your teeth.

Oriental Poppy

The truth is in the red of you,

the black centre wide

as a pupil in a blind-drawn room.

Bloodshot, you stare

into the sky and will not squint

until the sun does.

RED STILETTO

“Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.”

      – Charles Simic, “Our Angelic Ancestor”

Something here –

Nike runner with its arc

of dreamed flight, feathered

bedroom slipper, red

stiletto with the pointed toe,

arrows into darkness.

The bodies have hopped between

dumpsters, between these bookshelves.

Hissing cats, torn pages, milk

cartons licked blank.

They have unwritten

their other legs. They believe in silence

and the striving after balance.

Somewhere in there

they stand like resting flamingoes,

tuck around them

the memory of the other leg

like a cruel friendship

lost in childhood. Phantom phrases still

caught in their knotted tongues.

ASSONANCE

Hurt bird in dirt
– she writes

for sound, and a sparrow

that hit the window of her childhood

too hard. Because of how the ear

takes words in and holds them

to itself, how they strike

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