Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

We never knew his surname
he was just Con.
He’d retired here by the sea
built his own home.
We found him when he opened it to us.
a sporting event in a town with not enough beds
civic pride asked residents to assist
he answered the plea – he was like that.

“There are no strangers, only friends we haven’t met”
so the cliché says
on coasters
on fridge magnets
on posters – to eyes that know better
but in the surf echoing lounge of our meeting
it just was.
There was warmth.
and shyness
a shyness that never went away
the shy of people finding magic
knowing to disturb or classify is to vaporize.
After the first time
we stayed with him every year.

Oceanfront bar
doors bifold to the horizon.
Sunday, warm and blue
the blue of Monet or Van Gogh
sky and sea of arms flung exultance
a day beyond mutation
bliss, memory could never edit
perfection unalterable by circumstance.

Glasses raised in the beer sparkling sunshine
a coastal freighter freeze frames into harbour
bar patrons denounce and cheer satellite sport.

Amid updating the year past
and plan swapping of the one to be
we asked about his shoulder.
He said it had responded to massage and therapy
had talked to the surgeon
and decided to wait – “ give it a bit more time.”
He died three months later – bone cancer.

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She was the first criminal I met
or rather the first with a conviction
trim, fair and pretty – so unexpected
perhaps it was the childhood images – villains always dark, huge, scary.

Memory would never yield the catalyst of disclosure
perhaps the straining colony of youth
was reminder of the republic she once yearned to be
or our unlikely intersection the right to warn.
Either or neither
retrospection has a tendency to personalize
truth can be far more proletariat.
It rained almost every day that summer
the only two who didn’t smoke
precious relief from monotonous assembling
spent sheltering from staffroom storms of tobacco
maybe small talk just ran out.

However it was precipitated
one day she told me
about her crime – and time in prison.

Do they know ? I asked
“they,” being the workplace management.
Thin laughter – brittle and knowing
the laugh of a parent
hearing a preposterous request of a department store Santa.
When you’ve been inside everybody knows she replied
announcing agencies on fingers as I studied my hands.

And prison?
Cryptic wisdom no 17-year-old could ever understand
“ anyone can go in
only criminals leave.”
Jail wasn’t a problem it was the coming out.
Outside was everything and nothing
Everything looks the same. Nothing is familiar.
“ no one wants to know you kiddo.”
“Kiddo,” the one jarring chord in a jaunty sonata of admission.

She thought I might think differently
but getting the job here was a stroke of fortune.
Lady luck had smiled. She had been released early
reporting twice-weekly as a condition of parole
assigned by chance to a liberal section.
Her probation officer made some calls – the old boy network
someone he knew
knew someone
who knew the boss of this place
a Christian known to practise and preach – he might take a chance.

He did. Offering a three-month trial two years ago
funny she said how she never thought much of church
and all that stuff about God and forgiveness
“but it wasn’t for the lay preacher….”

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Adolescence coincided with the 1970’s
loose hair and tight jeans
soft notes of West Coast rock
push aside 60s guitar gurus.

The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac the new kids in town
less noise – more polish
angst spoken quietly
capturing sales and critics. Win Win.

Feminism also reduced volume
the polemic of Germane Greer and Simone de Beauvoir
replaced with the persuasion of Marilyn French
and Boston Women’s Collective.

The new literature read by a callow identity
determined to value and appreciate women
yearns for meaningful closeness
imagination rehearses urgent dialogues of inequality.

Revolution breed in the captivity of academia
it is often released to an unready catchment
earnest intensity rebuffed by women barely ex-teenagers.
The second sex happy to be both.

Newborn sensitivity carefully explained
the need to render invisible the imbalance of gender
and receives puzzled looks and abrupt termination.
An auction with no bids.

In a tobacco stained voice she asked what was wrong.
Cynthia in her late-40s probably
age blurred by three plus decades of smoking
the question self answered. “Girlfriend problems?”

Time and place parent unlikely friendship
vacation factory work
stations serious youth alongside relentless cheer
three months of constant chatter builds comfortable dialogue.

Disclosure confesses inability to find meaningful other
cigarette voice smoke signals absolution
“when the right one comes along …. you’ll just know
I did with each of my three husbands.”
She had not been widowed.

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