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From the archives

Object Lessons

Lisa Alward’s debut collection

The Other Side of “Irish Eyes”

Brian Mulroney abroad and at home

But Is It Trash?

Evaluating art in the age of conspicuous consumption

Cloak of Invisibility

 

We leave our houses together —

I with my lunch kit, you your ragged fur,

and startle each other across the lawn — steal a glance,

then you clear the white hill,

all that’s left of the winter

castle holding you in its box,

look straight ahead, freeze into the ice.

Not even patience, just the glue of instinct

keeps you there,

taking the guise of a rabbit

on your own piece of cardboard snow.

 

I’ve seen you before —

when my husband said you’d

moved in next door I didn’t believe it —

the house is empty, boarded up,

but there you were, nothing more

than an old woman heating up your supper

in a rusted hibachi on the lawn.

I almost stepped over you

racing to my car.

I’d been crying but you never noticed,

just kept right on eating.

It’s a fine line, I was thinking,

between existing and being held in existence

by another’s eyes.

 

You never looked up or wavered

from the precise task of chewing.

Perhaps you remembered the ancient punishment

for all idle persons, tinkers,

discharged prisoners, gypsies —

trespassers on private property.

 

What’s with the white coat?

You think that if you hold that pose

long enough you will disappear?

You don’t recognize the obvious do you?

 

I can see your scraggly brown neck,

those absurd teeth, the way you hide

in the seams of your cloak

like a private diary.

 

Cassy Welburn is a Calgary poet and storyteller who has toured the country sharing her stories and poetry. Her work can be found in The Antigonish Review, Arc Magazine, FreeFall Magazine, in poetry anthologies and on CBC Radio. She teaches new Canadians, as well as gifted students of all ages. Her poetry collection, Changelings, will be published in the fall of 2015 by Frontenac House of Calgary.

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