Strangers. Rob Taylor

      We snap out our chopsticks and talk about the weather. After a lull I start in about the Lake Vostok project in Antarctica and how it took them over twenty years to drill down to the surface of the lake, four thousand metres under the ice. That’s interesting, she says. Then the waiter arrives with our food. She mangles her California roll and I burn the roof of my mouth on my deep-fried tofu. Eventually she lays her chopsticks down across her bento box and tells me that her friend’s doing better, though the cancer is still killing her. She’s so skinny now but she bought herself a new wardrobe and can drive her car, so it’s not all that bad yet. That’s good to hear, I say. The lake is almost as large as Lake Ontario, I add, and it’s been trapped under ice for fifteen million years. Then we both say one or two things and somehow we end up talking about her parents, how her mom’s folks hated her father so much that he packed up the family and moved north to the mining town just to get away from that mess. The waiter comes around again with the green tea. Neither of us wants more, but we smile politely as he pours. Your dad would have liked the Lake Vostok project, I say. They set a record by drilling the world’s deepest ice core. That’s something, she says. The waiter brings the bill and she takes it before I get the chance. When he returns with the change it’s an awkward amount so I chip in a dollar for the tip. They fill the borehole with Freon and kerosene so it doesn’t freeze between drillings, almost sixty tons of the stuff so far. That doesn’t sound good, she says. No, I say, but they don’t think it will contaminate the lake because as soon as they break the surface, water will rush up the borehole and freeze, sealing out the chemicals. Well I hope so, she says, pulling on her jacket. On our way out we pass a table with a mother and three kids. All the kids have sticky rice in their hair or on their face but none of the four seems to mind. You should write a poem about that, she says. She’s never said anything like it before. About what, I ask. But she can’t hear me over the street noise and has already moved on to something else.

      Speak When Illuminated

      I lie in bed, await three knocks from my parents’ side

      of our adjoining wall, one each for I, love, and you—

      then I reply, with one more added on for too.

      And only then we sleep.

      I dream I’m in an elevator: an adult, poet,

      stubble-cheeked. My father dead, expectedly.

      My mother married once again and happy.

      My own wife in our home, expectant.

      Then the elevator sticks.

      I root my fingers in the door. It doesn’t give.

      I press the button, panic-red, attempting to call out—

      to whom? Some maintenance guy? A telecom employee

      in Chennai? Speak When Illuminated

      reads the sign that doesn’t light.

      To myself, I realize, my mind half waking

      from the dream. I am my only rescue.

      I stare into the bulb to make it shine.

      My wife is out there waiting; my manuscripts

      and friends. My mother and my father just outside.

      Yes, even him.

      My waking mind insists it cannot be. He’s too old

      to have lasted out these years. No, he’s just behind

      the wall, I say into myself. I’ll show you now.

      I knock three times upon the metal door.

      Four knocks ring back.

      My waking mind falls silent, yields the floor.

      I am not a child anymore.

      A Normal Day

      Rain. The sound of it on the roof. A song on the radio

      I’ll almost remember tomorrow. Just enough light

      to write by. A lamp I know I should switch on.

      Soda crackers. Hot water with lemon. Dishes in the sink,

      few enough I can put them off a while. In the afternoon

      I’ll call my mother and we’ll talk about nothing,

      the weather. I’ll ask if it’s raining there and she’ll say yes.

      We’ll share some news about family or football,

      and maybe reminisce a bit: my childhood, my father,

      her life before us both. But mostly the rain,

      which will lighten and finally stop around dinner

      while my wife and I are filling the house with our talk

      so we will not notice the change until hours later,

      sitting in bed. One of us will lower their book

      and mention it in passing. Or maybe

      it will still be raining then, so we’ll say nothing

      and in the morning we won’t be certain

      if it ever stopped, or when it did

      and when it started up again.

      Love, fidelity, etc.

      I do not wear you

      when I shower, when I sleep,

      when playing sports or making things,

      my knuckles thick in dirt or grease,

      though I wear you now on the hand

      behind my head, which tilts it to the page.

      Remember when I lost you

      those six months beneath the driver’s seat?

      You must have hidden in my pocket—

      the one inside the other—

      and when I wriggled out the keys

      you ventured too.

      Folks think you represent

      but we both know you’re

      up there in the darkness of my hair

      or, one time, waiting in the car.

      When I rediscovered you

      we were both prodigals’ fathers

      grieving our sons,

      though it was my hand, of course,

      reached out in welcome,

      my mouth that rushed the story to my wife.

      Yes, you arrived with my marriage.

      You’ll go at the end, off to some necklace or pouch

      or you’ll linger years in the earth

      until all you encircle is earth

      and a scavenger prospects you up,

      as I did, from the muck.

      It wasn’t much. I was in the field.

      I knelt. My hands were bare.