?Pat the soil, like this,? Val says, showing Rhea how to flatten the soil covering the newly planted bulbs. Two years ago, Rhea planted the bulbs too deep and the flowers never grew. That was the first sign something was wrong; Rhea always had a green thumb and her garden had always been beautiful.

Rhea gives Val a blank look and then stares at her daughter’s hands as Val pats the soil. Today has been what Val calls a Pollock day, after the print by Jackson Pollock Rhea gave to Val on her thirty-sixth birthday. On Pollock days, Rhea exists in confusion; she remembers little or nothing and is baffled by even the most routine tasks. On this particular Pollock day, she had put her pants on inside out and her blouse on over her sweater. Val had to help her change, dressing her like a child.

This is the second year Val has been taking care of her mother. Two years of the Game Show Network and neurotic hosts shouting ?Double Whammy!? or ?C?mon down!? Two years of taking Rhea for short walks transformed into epic journeys by her need to wear, regardless of weather, scarf and toque, winter boots and gloves, and a winter coat with the collar turned up around the neck. Two years of questions: ?Who are you? Where am I? What day is it? What month, what year??

Once in a while, Rhea asks, ?Where’s my baby?? Val is an only child and knows the baby her mother is asking about is herself.

It was on the third night that Rhea noticed the pattern on the pillow sham. Despite having slept on the same sheets for as long as she could remember, perhaps all of her 15 years, she had never really looked at the pattern. The sham was mostly white with a sprawling design of pale green vines. As her father lay down beside her she saw that pale blue flowers dappled the curly green lines.

The pillow sham felt cool against the heat of her face and she found herself staring at the delicate blue flowers again, hidden from her all these years and finally revealed, on this night, amidst the confusion of green vines.

Sometimes Val’s father had come into her bedroom at night. She will never forget the sound of his breathing. He made a sort of low grunt each time he exhaled, as if his throat were closing and he were about to choke. In the quiet, early morning hours, there was no escape from the sound.

?Mom, you okay in there?? Val asks, trying to ignore these unwelcome memories. Val and Rhea have been in the public washroom at Zellers for the length of time it has taken the in-store audio system to cycle through five instrumentals, all seeming to feature Kenny G. Shopping for comfortable shoes with Velcro instead of laces had taken twice as long; according to Rhea, all of the shoes were too tight.

?Are you sure you don’t need any help?? Val knows her mother will not reply. They have replayed this scene many times before and the outcome is always the same: Rhea locks herself in the toilet and refuses to respond to Val’s enquiries until Val finally has to climb under the door into the stall. As Val drops to her hands and knees, she is surprised to hear the lock disengage. Rhea pushes open the door and stands before her daughter, shoulders bent, watery eyes imploring. ?My baby is dead,? she says. ?He killed my baby.?

Val feels the sting of threatened tears. She has never shared anything with her mother, and these words confirm suspicions she has always harboured. ?You knew,? she says, feeling only sadness now. Sometimes there is anger, hot and uncontrollable, bubbling out of her like an overflowing pot left unattended on the stove. Other times there is bitterness and pleasure to be taken from her mother’s fear. Now there is only emptiness, lingering hope torn from her, leaving her hollow.

On the night Val’s father was taken to the hospital, there was an old man sitting in the waiting room holding a woman’s purse on his lap. Val watched the man sleep with his head dropped onto his chest, repulsed by the trail of saliva glistening on his chin.

Val’s father had been on dialysis for years and his kidneys had finally decided to quit. Not soon enough, as far as Val was concerned. The doctor told Val and Rhea that Bill had not suffered much and he was not suffering now that he was in a coma. Val had hoped there would be pain, and consciousness.

Bill’s bed was at the end of the hospital room separated by a thin curtain from a woman who sometimes cried out in her sleep. The life support apparatus reminded Val of her father’s breathing, the sucking inhale and laborious exhale.

When Rhea left the room for coffee, Val pulled her chair close to her father’s bed and examined the face of the man who had destroyed her. Weak now, old and powerless. ?I forgive you,? she said, forcing the healing words. She waited for something to happen, a weight lifted off her shoulders. The breathing machine continued its work and Val felt nothing change.

On her wedding night, Rhea found herself remembering the pillow sham with the blue flowers and twisting vines. Bill held her close as she cried, seeming to understand the reason for her distance although she could not have explained it to him in words. She would never tell him about her father or the baby she had lost and she sensed that he would not resent her secrecy. On that night, she knew that she loved him and that he would be a good husband, a good father. It was what she had always wished for.

Val stirs custard on the stove while Rhea sits in the den watching another game of questions. She is making what Rhea used to call Banana Hide, custard filled with slices of banana that remain hidden under the skin.

When the custard is ready, Val pours some into a dessert bowl and lets it cool on the counter. As she washes the dinner dishes, she watches the skin form on the yellow custard and listens to a contestant tell the game show host that ?If wishes were horses? is her final answer.

The custard has cooled by the time Val finishes tidying the kitchen and she takes the bowl with her into the den. Rhea is still sitting on a chair from the dining room with a TV table pulled up close to her waist. ?Time for dessert,? Val says as she sets the bowl on the table and hands Rhea the spoon. It has not been a Pollock day, so Val does not have to feed her.

As Rhea spoons the custard into her mouth, slurping it like soup, Val feels a heat rising within her. It is that anger, bubbling, making the blood rush to her face. ?I can’t forgive you,? Val says and Rhea stops eating the custard, the hand holding her spoon poised midway between the bowl and her mouth. ?I can’t forgive you for not making him stop.?

Rhea looks at her daughter, her brow drawn down slightly. Val feels as if they are on the edge of something, a revelation, an admission. If on good days Rhea could remember the names of flowers, perhaps she could remember her daughter’s pain as well.

?He killed my baby,? Rhea says finally. She turns back to the television and brings the spoon to her mouth, slurping the cooled custard.

Val watches her mother eat and, when Rhea has finished her dessert, gets up to close the curtains against the gathering darkness.

?What am I to do now?? This has become my grandmother’s refrain.

It was shocking when I saw her again after she had been moved from the Alzheimer’s care centre to the nursing home. My mother had tried to warn me, but I was still unprepared for the vacant eyes, the crooked body, and the guttural repetition of, ?What am I to do now??

At first, we had answers for her. We talked about the weather and about what was happening in our lives. We read her favourite Scottish poems and sang songs to remind her of her youth in Glasgow. We attempted a humorous rendition of ?Happy Birthday? and opened her cards. ?Oh, look at this one from Auntie Dorrie. You remember Dorrie, don’t you??

I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her empty eyes before she continued her questioning. With an exasperated sigh, I said, ?Nothing. You’re just going to relax.?

Of course, this disease won’t let her do that. Her failing mind and now her failing body hold her in a constant state of fear and pain.

Apparently, we’re not the only ones bothered by my grandmother’s questions. The nurses keep her door shut most of the time because She’s so loud, shouting her confusion until She’s hoarse with the effort. I want to get angry with them. How dare they treat my grandmother like this? This is my gran, I want to say, the woman who used to make me toast soldiers and hot chocolate, and who always had a comforting word and cuddle to share. This is the quiet woman who spent most of her life in a loveless, abusive marriage and faced it all without question, without ever raising her voice.

This, above all, is a human being. How can you shut her out? How can you leave her to suffer alone? But then I remember my exasperation in the short hour we spent together on her birthday and, despite the lingering indignation and my own feelings of guilt, I understand.

Seeing my grandmother suffering that day and learning about her isolation, I realized that throughout her life, my gran has always suffered alone. It was the way she chose to survive, perhaps something she had learned from her own mother who was also a survivor in a much different way. My great grandmother was sharp-tongued and feisty, raising three children almost entirely on her own after her husband returned crippled from the First World War. Even near the end, when she suffered from dementia and her 92 years of hard living had left her body shrivelled and useless, her spirit was obvious in the way she rolled up her newspapers and tried to swat the male residents at the home.

She was a fighter, and so, in her own way, is my grandmother. Quietly and unassumingly, she fought her way through a life of hardship and pain. Now she is fighting death with a loudness that is startling, as if she has finally found her voice after all these years. She shouts and questions. She makes her presence known.

This new feature of my grandmother, whether brought on by the disease or some long-hidden aspect of her own personality, makes me simultaneously uncomfortable and proud. During the birthday visit, I tried to shush her, to keep her calm and quiet by stroking her hair and hands and reading her favourite poems in a soft and soothing voice. When nurses passed in the hallway and caught my eye, I felt inexplicably embarrassed, as if they were judging me because of this loud and obnoxious woman in their care.

Now that I am away from that place, the nursing home with its clinical smells and surfaces, I am pleased by my grandmother’s behaviour. I want her to fight, to heed Dylan Thomas and ?rage, rage against the dying of the light.? I want her to be heard and to force us all to think about life and death, the important questions.

?What am I to do now?? she asks. Indeed, what are we all to do when faced with mortality in this way?

Perhaps that is why the nurses shut the door and why we all want my grandmother to stay quiet. When confronted with her refrain, we realize there are no conclusive answers. Instead of encouraging her rage against the coming night, we try to hide or soothe it away because we are afraid and we don’t want to face her questioning for ourselves.

Maybe That’s okay. Maybe That’s how we all survive. But the next time I visit, I am determined to let my gran shout, to listen to her questions without fear. I will hear her newfound voice and I will celebrate her fight to ?burn and rave at close of day.?

It was shocking when I saw her again after she had been moved from the Alzheimer’s care centre to the nursing home. My mother had tried to warn me, but I was still unprepared for the vacant eyes, the crooked body, and the guttural repetition of, ?What am I to do now??

At first, we had answers for her. We talked about the weather and about what was happening in our lives. We read her favourite Scottish poems and sang songs to remind her of her youth in Glasgow. We attempted a humorous rendition of ?Happy Birthday? and opened her cards. ?Oh, look at this one from Auntie Dorrie. You remember Dorrie, don’t you??

I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her empty eyes before she continued her questioning. With an exasperated sigh, I said, ?Nothing. You’re just going to relax.?

Of course, this disease won’t let her do that. Her failing mind and now her failing body hold her in a constant state of fear and pain.

Apparently, we’re not the only ones bothered by my grandmother’s questions. The nurses keep her door shut most of the time because She’s so loud, shouting her confusion until She’s hoarse with the effort. I want to get angry with them. How dare they treat my grandmother like this? This is my gran, I want to say, the woman who used to make me toast soldiers and hot chocolate, and who always had a comforting word and cuddle to share. This is the quiet woman who spent most of her life in a loveless, abusive marriage and faced it all without question, without ever raising her voice.

This, above all, is a human being. How can you shut her out? How can you leave her to suffer alone? But then I remember my exasperation in the short hour we spent together on her birthday and, despite the lingering indignation and my own feelings of guilt, I understand.

Seeing my grandmother suffering that day and learning about her isolation, I realized that throughout her life, my gran has always suffered alone. It was the way she chose to survive, perhaps something she had learned from her own mother who was also a survivor in a much different way. My great grandmother was sharp-tongued and feisty, raising three children almost entirely on her own after her husband returned crippled from the First World War. Even near the end, when she suffered from dementia and her 92 years of hard living had left her body shrivelled and useless, her spirit was obvious in the way she rolled up her newspapers and tried to swat the male residents at the home.

She was a fighter, and so, in her own way, is my grandmother. Quietly and unassumingly, she fought her way through a life of hardship and pain. Now she is fighting death with a loudness that is startling, as if she has finally found her voice after all these years. She shouts and questions. She makes her presence known.

This new feature of my grandmother, whether brought on by the disease or some long-hidden aspect of her own personality, makes me simultaneously uncomfortable and proud. During the birthday visit, I tried to shush her, to keep her calm and quiet by stroking her hair and hands and reading her favourite poems in a soft and soothing voice. When nurses passed in the hallway and caught my eye, I felt inexplicably embarrassed, as if they were judging me because of this loud and obnoxious woman in their care.

Now that I am away from that place, the nursing home with its clinical smells and surfaces, I am pleased by my grandmother’s behaviour. I want her to fight, to heed Dylan Thomas and ?rage, rage against the dying of the light.? I want her to be heard and to force us all to think about life and death, the important questions.

?What am I to do now?? she asks. Indeed, what are we all to do when faced with mortality in this way?

Perhaps that is why the nurses shut the door and why we all want my grandmother to stay quiet. When confronted with her refrain, we realize there are no conclusive answers. Instead of encouraging her rage against the coming night, we try to hide or soothe it away because we are afraid and we don’t want to face her questioning for ourselves.

Maybe That’s okay. Maybe That’s how we all survive. But the next time I visit, I am determined to let my gran shout, to listen to her questions without fear. I will hear her newfound voice and I will celebrate her fight to ?burn and rave at close of day.?

My corset is made of air,
stronger than steel or bone
and self-laced to shape me like a tube.

What better way to purge this hourglass?

You know,
Ms. Granger holds the record,
tight-laced to fifteen now and counting,
but I have no use for her corsetiere.

To be the hand within the glove
must have some appeal.

Immobilized,
would Warhol craft
a stylized portrait to commemorate
the corset joining him in death?

To protect, support, heal:
this at least has merit.

Invisible and resilient,
my corset does not hold me in or back,
but rejects compression into
this shape you have defined for me.

Elevator

Why should we not go down?

This is exorcism in an elevator,
your face a blur,
a hint of auburn locks, a crooked smile.

No good, no good, no good,
for anyone or anything.

One press and slam, a transformation.
Speeding upwards now,
your hands around my throat
passed every floor.

There are no destinations here,
no scheduled stops.
The walls have folded out and over,
the Big Bang in reverse:

I am the unmaker, the undoer.

You glimpse the edge,
concrete and steel, and then beyond.

It is all the chance I need,
and one thrust is enough to topple
what you were and are,
and never will become.

We pause at the window of the ferry car deck
to watch shadows on the surface of the water
chase each other across the waves like dolphins

In this place we share our separation

A distant beacon swings its light towards us
before turning away once again to pierce
the darkness between the islands

The ferry horn bellows twice
and when the echo of this interruption fades
we are alone with the humming engine
the whispering sea
and the steady rhythm of our breath

Lifeline

Which one is your lifeline?

I can never remember
which of the three deep lines
coursing across your palm

The curved one that branches at the end
or one of the two running parallel
never touching

I trace them with my fingertips
while you sleep

This long line striking out
diagonally from your thumb
seems out of place
shaped like a bolt of lightning
it intersects divides interrupts

Do you dream of the line between us
the separation of the drowning from
the drowned?

I need to find your lifeline
to see whether it forks at the end
it will tell us how many
children you will have
or whether your life will be cut short
I can never remember

you and you and you
a tragedy
of soaking locks and floating
layers of dark linen
becoming the river
and staring with empty eyes
at spinning wild flowers and weeds
white limbs swallowed
by murky water

Ophelia they said was mad
and I with her
in love with love and
every flower but
forget-me-nots

one for
you and you and you
a tragedy
of crownflowers and daisies
and swirls of rosemary
tangled with the willow
while ivory hands still cling
to sharp nettles and long purples
blackened with mire
and lingering madness

Christabel

why was she your enemy
that reptilian demoness

with mother lost
she could have been
your comfort

or better yet a goddess
filling you with power
instead of draining it

why on a dark night
when you are mourning
the distance of a violent man
must she be the snake
the temptress

why not just a woman
like you

like me