I watch the water lift the ships to pass,
which explains why I don’t make it
to the airport nor to San Cristobal de las Casas, nor
into your life. I would have called that evening
but my cell died and the following day
your questions in my inbox had lost
ground, like songs leftover playing
to a sticky floor without dancers. Another time,
unable to locate a suitcase large enough
and unsure what to bring, I pack myself
into a house with another lover and rummage
for my belonging, which I find I’ve misplaced
somewhere in night creams and Sauvignon Blanc
and bed sheets from the Bay and in the blue
hues I roll onto walls. I can’t tell you the number
of times “I need to leave” loiters on my tongue,
prepares my mouth to say it, but the census
taker knocks, the duct-cleaner calls, a robin
strikes a window. And so the days shuttle
themselves into protein slabs
and roughage we stab and chew
into sustenance while Jeopardy’s blue light
washes our faces. That evening Dr. Mahalingham
asks if I’ve been sleeping, I say the cat needs
out at midnight and in at four and that a pulse
drums my ears in-between, so I sleep only
a wink before my daughter phones
to ask how I’ve slept. Mid-summer now, the nasturtium seeds I bought stay pinned to my bulletin board in their lurid package.
Tonya Lailey is currently an MFA student at UBC after working in vineyards and in the wine trade.
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