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Distancing
David Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor of Ascent Magazine, Aspirations for Artists, published since 1997. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in 28 journals, including Three Candles, Regina Weese, Ardent and Ygdrasil. He has recently published a collection of his poetry, "Going to the Well," and another of his short fiction, "The Dark Side of the Billboard." David is currently the BC Federation of Writers Regional Director for The Islands Region.
By David Fraser
Your hands are brittle moments held,
your shoulders briefly hugged
are carved wood stretched
with skin as if across
a drum I cannot play.
I watch you walk
tipping to the side
with replaced knees,
feet for shuffling floors,
not striking soccer balls.
I repeat questions,
you repeat silences,
your hearing aid in a drawer.
I tease you about the taxpayer's money
sitting dormant while I shout.
You search for words to questions,
"whatsit wells, you know."
and when pressed you blurt out in anger
accurate descriptions to where
they get their water.
You smile, your anger fading,
sinking just beneath the surface.
Whatsit, whatjamacallits, thingamabobs,
ingrained nonsense words, well-worn neural pathways
hard to veer away from in search of accuracy.
Your scapula to touch
like holding raw bleached bone
smoothed by sun and rain and wind,
this spring by thirty thousand days
of toil,
rough hewn work and sacrifice.
I can't kick myself about this now,
for touch with me and you
was not a sense
we flowed to easily.
There was a claminess,
a fragile boniness
even as a child for pictures
when you pressed my face
into your hip.
From the beginning
this repelling distancing
was always there.
Published September 2005
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