Joanna Streetly
Even So
five heads of hair that comb went through
scrape and tug of curl-battered tines
as we sat on the old canoe, not fidgeting
worn metal hull hot beneath our legs
and the searing burn of thigh flesh if we shifted
five kids—I was youngest, rushing
to close a four-year gap, no sprint fast enough
time chaining me to my lineal
place, last groove on the stick, my mum
so ill because I--
there I am sitting in the yard in midday sun
staring at dents in metal and peeling paint
the glinting debris of tweezered lice, that
pale blue surface littered with corpses
lessons in multiplication, while
fingers like hounds trot through
the parted rows, my scalp a scouting field
underbreath comments: oh lord, terrible
how d’you let it get so bad?
and still that shameful scuttling in the unmown
grass of my hair, and even so I’d give anything
to be there, frying in the heat, the hot-land sun that would
finish off the lice, finish off mum, her tired hands
safeguarding my head, tho’ she didn’t have
the time for this, didn’t have the strength
scrape and tug of curl-battered tines
as we sat on the old canoe, not fidgeting
worn metal hull hot beneath our legs
and the searing burn of thigh flesh if we shifted
five kids—I was youngest, rushing
to close a four-year gap, no sprint fast enough
time chaining me to my lineal
place, last groove on the stick, my mum
so ill because I--
there I am sitting in the yard in midday sun
staring at dents in metal and peeling paint
the glinting debris of tweezered lice, that
pale blue surface littered with corpses
lessons in multiplication, while
fingers like hounds trot through
the parted rows, my scalp a scouting field
underbreath comments: oh lord, terrible
how d’you let it get so bad?
and still that shameful scuttling in the unmown
grass of my hair, and even so I’d give anything
to be there, frying in the heat, the hot-land sun that would
finish off the lice, finish off mum, her tired hands
safeguarding my head, tho’ she didn’t have
the time for this, didn’t have the strength
Biography
Photography by Jen Steele
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Joanna Streetly’s (she/her) most recent book, Wild Fierce Life: Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast, is a 2018 BC Bestseller published by Caitlin Press. Other titles include Paddling Through Time (Raincoast Books) and Silent Inlet (Oolichan Books) as well as This Dark (poetry, Postelsia Press). Her work is also published in Best Canadian Essays 2017 and in anthologies, magazines and literary journals. Look for her essay “Water Signs” in the January 2020 edition of The London Reader.
Joanna grew up in Trinidad and moved to Canada to study Outdoor Recreation and Wilderness Leadership. She has lived in Tofino since 1990, most of that time off-grid on islands, or in the float house she still lives in today. She is the inaugural Tofino Poet Laureate 2018-2020. Social media: Website www.joannastreetly.com Twitter @joannastreetly Instagram @merganser_bay Photo credit: Jen Steele www.jensteele.com |
