we live at the centre

and all things point here

from past and future

to you and i

my love is adrift

for a short time

sleepy sailing

while the mechanic works

that we might walk together

in the sun

once more

amidst the absence
of a most
precious presence
one is left alone
with themselves
a strange and untrustworthy
character
often distracted
by the other
now awkward
as though
with a friend
you have not spent
time with
for a great and long while
so all the talk is small
while you wait and hope
for the return
of your comfortable
of your brown hair
of your hazel-green eyes
that i might forget me again
and live with you –
present.

My wife is a warrior…but not the obvious kind that comes screaming at you with sword aloft. My wife is a quiet warrior.

For almost eight weeks now Megan has been confined entirely to bed. You likely don’t know this because she does not like to “place her burdens on others”. She has what the MRI describes as a “extremely bulging disc at L5/S1 (very low back.

It happened gradually. She has been having some level of back pain and sciatica for about three years now. It progressively got worse and now she cannot walk without immeasurable agony.

I cannot fathom her pain and I cannot fathom her confinement. She doesn’t complain. She does her best to maintain a positive outlook and frankly I think a lot of that is so that myself and others who are close to her are not worried.

The medical profession has relegated her to pain relieving medications that really do not work that well. There is a referal to a spinal specialist in Winnipeg but that happened just before Covid when there was a six month wait. We’re not sure how long it will be now. Also we’re not sure how she is supposed to get there given her immobility.

My wife is a warrior. She is quietly determined to see this through and beat it. She does what small amout of exercise she can from bed. She frets about me and the things she wishes she could help out with.

When i dumped some laundry on the bed she wanted to help me fold it.

Being stuck in bed is not the vacation I always imagined it would be.

It is difficult not being able to do anything to fix this for her. I am a fixer. Annoyingly so. I see a problem and I want to intervene and solve it. I almost cannot help it. I hate to see pepole in pain.

My wife is a warrior. I could never go through what she is going through with the grace she does. I am a whiner. I would be an awful chore to take care of. She is a treat.

My heart aches for her and her pain. Her family has been incredible at helping out. They are truly the embodiment of what it means to be a blessing.

She will not be thrilled I am writing this. She is very private with her pain. I, on the other hand, come from a family of loudmouths. We scream out our pain for all the world and in this I cannot help but broadcast hers. She will forgive me. I know this. She expects these sorts of things from me by now.

My wife is a warrior and I could only live so long as to be like her. I admire literally everything about her.

I don’t know how long this will last. Every bit of research you read tells you something different. I do know she will get through it and come out stronger. I see her determination even in the very dark times when it seems like this will be endless…there is still that spark.

My wife is a warrior. My wife is a joy bringer. She is peaceful and kind and somehow contains boundless empathy. I love her dearly and hate her pain more than anything.

But, in the end I know she will get through this because –

My wife is a warrior.

regret is a telescope

trained on the past

night after night

watching your star

going nova

obliterating lives

and loves

in an endless cycle

of what ifs

and could have beens

a circle of hell

Dante kept hidden

he wound and wound
himself
into himself
from time to time

climbing the shale slopes
near the tracks
in a roasting sun
to find fossils
now a memory
that is a fossil too

swimming
beneath the surface
any surface
the rivers
the lakes
the ponds
and the quarries
under bridges
and over dams

there is worry
about water moccasins
and snapping turtles
but not enough
to run
not enough
to hide

he wound himself
into himself
and sometimes
out of himself too

and there is mum
with mum teased hair
and mum opened-eyed
but still somehow asleep
she winds into him too

as does the dark
as does the light
twinning and twining
to form him into himself

he sees the old dark sewers
the rubber boots and flashlight
in summer bright days
to delve the dark
to crouch and crawl
away and away from it all
and in this too
he wound himself
and wound out of himself

and he is a collection
of wound twine memory
twisting in and out
testimony to a linear time
now folded in on itself
losing past and future
leaving only the present

easy is the hardest thing
you just take the lights,
the small ones and the large,
push them out and out
and then step unfettered
into the dark