Purdah

A woman kept in a house
is like a cuckoo in a clock.
Her breasts sing with milk
in the middle of the night

All night the house blows
in the wind, a cradle
on top of a tall tree
or a ship lost at sea.

A man thinks he owns his wife
if she stays in the house
but once she shuts the door behind her
shuts the door on her children behind her
if she shuts the door of her mind
she can fly, no longer under lock and key.

A mother alone in the house
is like a cat in a cage
with two birds, alone
in the house with two children
in the house without wings.

Her two breasts, two small partridges
rustle in their nest, escape
like two cups overturned
two loose dice on the floor
two blind mice running to get the knife.

At night the house does not rock
like a boat at sea.
It is rooted, stands still
like a woman chained to a rock
awaiting rescue, like a cage
rocking on its pole.

The dangerous woman in the veil
sings to the women in the moon
she sings to the old woman
in the shoe, she sings to a woman
In anything else, besides a house.




-- from °Little Mother" (Hochelaga Press, Montreal, 1997)



*


Ghazal for Montreal


Three ladies with identical ash-brown hair sit
one behind the other, look left out the bus window.

Young Buddhist monk, shaved head, grey robes
disappears around the corner, carrying a briefcase.

Old man in a cheap plaid shirt spits into wire garbage can.
A pregnant Korean girl waits for the next bus.

Broken radiator bleeds green onto hot pavement.
Broken glass, on the hill, a smashed car.

I walk uphill, pause to let the mountain welcome me:
wooded street, shaded sidewalks, unseen spirit of green.




-- Published in "Zymergy" (1990) #7


*


Eve apprend la vérité sur sa naissance


Peut-être que tu ne te souviens pas
comment tu t'es retrouvée ici :

mais tu es arrivée a toute vapeur
de cet endroit détrempé,
déchirant sa peau, poussant avec ton crâne
à travers ses muscles
ruisselants de sang et d'eau
salée et précieuse.

Pendant neuf mois, nourrie
à la corde de vie, tu respiras
de l'eau, pirouettas dans la saumure,
hippocampe menu
brimbalée à bout de jambe.

Tu oublias le fil te menant ici
et maintenant que tu es séparée
de son corps,
tu dois te réintroduire
à travers le tien.

Refais surface dans la matinée ensoleillée,
les cris perçants des perroquets verts.
L'eau s'évapore sur les larges feuilles tropicales
au jardin d'Eve.




--from "A Place of Trees" (Over the Moon Press, 2003). Translated by André Jérôme