Free The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje Page B

of the skin
    earring earring
    curl
    of the belly
                   and then
    stone mermaid
    stone heart
    dry as a flower
    on rock
    you long eyed women
    the golden
    drunk swan breasts
    lips
    the long long eyes
    we stand against the sky
    I bring you
    a flute
    from the throat
    of a loon
    so talk to me
    of the used heart
THE RIVER NEIGHBOUR
    All these rumours. You lodge in the mountains
    of Hang-chou, a cabin in Portland township,
    or in Yüeh-chou for sure
    the dust from my marriage
    wasted our clear autumn
    This month the cactus
    under the rains
    while you lounge with my children
    by the creek snakes, the field asparagus
    Across the universe
    each room I lit
    was a dark garden, I held
    nothing but the lamp
    this letter paints me
    transparent as I am
    One dead bird in the hall
    conversation of the water-closets
    company of the leaf on the stairs
    I pass her often
    Moon leaf memory of asparagus
    I find her earrings
    at the foot of curtainless windows
    In the kitchen
    salt fills the body
    of an RCA Victor dog
    Let us nose our way
    next year with the spring waters
    and search for each other
    somewhere in the east
TO A SAD DAUGHTER
    All night long the hockey pictures
    gaze down at you
    sleeping in your tracksuit.
    Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
    Threats of being traded
    cuts and wounds
    – all this pleases you.
    O my god!
you say at breakfast
    reading the sports page over the Alpen
    as another player breaks his ankle
    or assaults the coach.
    When I thought of daughters
    I wasn’t expecting this
    but I like this more.
    I like all your faults
    even your purple moods
    when you retreat from everyone
    to sit in bed under a quilt.
    And when I say ‘like’
    I mean of course ‘love’
    but that embarrasses you.
    You who feel superior to black and white movies
    (coaxed for hours to see
Casablanca
)
    though you were moved
    by
Creature from the Black Lagoon
.
    One day I’ll come swimming
    beside your ship or someone will
    and if you hear the siren
    listen to it. For if you close your ears
    only nothing happens. You will never change.
    I don’t care if you risk
    your life to angry goalies
    creatures with webbed feet.
    You can enter their caves and castles
    their glass laboratories. Just
    don’t be fooled by anyone but yourself.
    This is the first lecture I’ve given you.
    You’re ‘sweet sixteen’ you said.
    I’d rather be your closest friend
    than your father. I’m not good at advice
    you know that, but ride
    the ceremonies
    until they grow dark.
    Sometimes you are so busy
    discovering your friends
    I ache with a loss
    – but that is greed.
    And sometimes I’ve gone
    into
my
purple world
    and lost you.
    One afternoon I stepped
    into your room. You were sitting
    at the desk where I now write this.
    Forsythia outside the window
    and sun spilled over you
    like a thick yellow miracle
    as if another planet
    was coaxing you out of the house
    – all those possible worlds! –
    and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.
    I cannot look at forsythia now
    without loss, or joy for you.
    You step delicately
    into the wild world
    and your real prize will be
    the frantic search.
    Want everything. If you break
    break going out not in.
    How you live your life I don’t care
    but I’ll sell my arms for you,
    hold your secrets for ever.
    If I speak of death
    which you fear now, greatly,
    it is without answers,
    except that each
    one we know is
    in our blood.
    Don’t recall graves.
    Memory is permanent.
    Remember the afternoon’s
    yellow suburban annunciation.
    Your goalie
    in his frightening mask
    dreams perhaps
    of gentleness.
ALL ALONG THE MAZINAW
    Later the osprey
    falling towards
    only what he sees
    the messenger heron
    warning of our progress
    up Mud Lake
    a paddle is
    stranger
    to what it heaves out of the way
    Wherever you go
    within a silence
    is witnessed,
                             touches.
    Everything aware
    of alteration but you.
    Creatures who veer.