Wayside Sang

[…] where things were found ourselves those days stretched
across a bond
semi-trailer black with burgundy flame detail       all out
everyday felt to two cans of coke and a mickey of rye
strings of substance pull through black holes
                for home
so long mould the damp sprung
there was no controlling the heat or the bedbug
               flashbacks
shared laundry and all the domestic tasks made public
hit the road
hove time
               discipline to muscle
won’t have to drive too far
just ’cross the border and into the city
wherever
the final destination takes this it’ll be     higher ground

land lifts the road
rises to meet

where you are at
passenger

how did you come to be
so out of reach

in just a few years

well I remember well

those lips
a seal of callous

on a mouth thin-seeming
till the bottom one
plumps out

how did you get to be so free
and far

from hand-coursed thigh
in Hopper summer light

power lines held by birds
of prey the hostile expanse above

ditches teeming floral invasive
wayside fleurs

late summer the shoulder sang

holds breeze by
the course of the drive

ravelling winds furl sparse treetops

semi-trailers startle traffic to attention
righted to the middle steady

a point of calm

a sense of pedal to headrest
never lost hope of going somewhere

a waiting trench the front across the dash
deep open road through the window

on the glass
bokeh crystals of settlement

streaming past mirror side appears larger

after all the lakes hold ashes and fur

long route tapers to a blue-strip august

the walk along here I was a daughter then
along a highway

on the route she shines on
leaning into the path as nettle heavy with rain […]

Excerpt from Wayside Sang, a book of long poems by Cecily Nicholson (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2017).