Windscript Volume 24, 2007-2008 - Saskatchewan Writers' Guild

The Magazine of Saskatchewan High School Writing
Arden Angley
Widower
I’m so happy you can control your temper
with such dignity. Throwing blankets and chairs,
even me if I gave you the chance.
I’m glad that I have to lie about your
whereabouts when you decide to up and leave.
Above all, I thank you
for the childhood that I am clawing at and clinging to,
for facing things I’m not supposed to
and for growing up too fast.
Because it’s so fulfilling to watch your
kids rot from the inside
right, dad?
To watch the tears multiply like maggots
right, dad?
I remind you of everyone
and you remind me that I am
the worthless daughter you were stuck
with when your fat wife died.
25
Your woman soft and small
I. Prior
Like when she was one
she loved him as a ghost.
For lack of reason
he teased her with silence.
The tongue of which corpses speak.
Death is only in the air.
She’d breathe in and swallow
the idea of him.
Alone and gasping,
she’d remember
that ghost was mine.
II. Ideal
In his palms, he held her
safe and sound in the boundary,
between thumb and forefinger.
The two of them tied a string around the swelling of her
heart.
Morning after- bulbs broke; soil soaked.
The water climbed her cotton shirt.
Nothing he could say would move her eyes from his lips.
He sees what isn’t said.
The stories between her teeth,
small secrets in the gaps of her gums.
III. Present
She said
“I’ve drowned today.
I floated in luke warm water. I bloated in thoughts
of my mother.”
He said
“Life is feeble.”
She said
“It was when I grew beyond my years.
I’m always older, drowning
in my wisdom.”
windScript volume 24