Canada
You flavour my stories with farm weekends:
the nights I played commando with my cousin
shimmying under barbed wire searching for enemies
behind silent tractors, silos hiding secret nuclear weapons
Or when it was so dark, we traced our name
with sparklers across the sky
the stars so close they blanketed our heads.
You weave your way into tales of Vancouver bus rides:
the 3 am number 8 bound for Fraser
where if you asked for a knife someone'd
have one tucked in their boot, you'd lose your stuff
if you left your seat - questions of "who took my CDs"
never answered, have a driver who'd rather keep driving
than stop for police that time the bullet
came through the side window.
You are packed cars filled with underage drivers
doing donuts in parking lots, tires skating
across the ice in winter, creating clouds of dust
in summer fields left fallow. You are riverside
birthday celebrations, beers in the back of pickups
fireworks decorating the night with streamers.
You are packed snowballs and carrot noses,
tents by midnight skinny-dipping lakes, campfire
crackles turning marshmallows brown and
here you guide my tongue to tell your history
over and over until it's my own.
Heather
www.heathertaylor.co.uk
Order Horizon and Back now on www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk
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