This All Happened?

i) relative perception

Back in Toronto, the same place my mother

left Corner Brook for. Me just a year old, oblivious

to the friction I’d caused for being born. We’re in

The Caribou Club, where Harry Hibbs would pack

the house with Newfoundlanders sick for home,

where my grandfather would play open mic nights,

when he and my grandmother still smoked Export A’s,

drank rum n cokes. Long before church, prayer,

and small town talk steered them toward the light.

The bar was also their living room, every table

set up like a coffee table with couch and wingback

chair on repeat, each table displayed a large bible,

its zippered closure undone, the splay offering

gold-gilt pages, christ’s words under neon red.

My grandparents and mother somehow sitting

at all the tables at once. Pop’s accordion a remote

for ‘the multicordion’—in lieu of a juke box

he’d built a glass case full of glowing glass tube

amps, bellows, pneumatic hoses. Lifetime of tithings

paid in saved change lining the bottom like a hoard.

Each note played would brighten the lights,

flush rushes of air through the hoses, bring his

voice over the speakers blowing benediction

as he whipped the accordion around his wrists,

left then right, slinging it behind his back, eyes

shut in ecstasy, my grandmother’s hands thrown

up in rapture while my mother smoked, lit each one

from the last, unimpressed. My grandfather’s eyes

wide, whites like a hunted animal’s, christ’s voice

quoting Hank Williams—if you’re gonna sing,

sing ‘em somethin’ they can understand.

My grandmother cross-stitches sheet music

in scrolls, her perfect up-do catching sheens

of light at every table, asks my mother—can

my grandson read music? Slow snakes of smoke

emerge from my mother’s nose, shakes her head

no, drops the butt in a half-empty glass of draught.

Her mother shrugs, there are other ways to serve.

Mom musses my hair, her eyes’ green glint

keen as a cat, smiles back a drawer of knives—

not the worst thing I’ve done.

I’m in the room, can hear their words, the music,

smell tobacco smoke and sour beer but my hand

passes through her shoulder when I try to say

look at me, you did damn well. I notice my infant

self in a bassinet look back at me with a shrug

and realize this isn’t the way it all went, nor is it

a fiction. My grandfather’s accordion hits the floor,

its black and white pearl keys fall out like old teeth

and the lights come up—the tables gone, no longer

sitting in The Caribou but waist-deep in water.

ii) status

I’m waist-deep in Parson’s Pond, my mother’s parents

in the water with me. Instead of dunking me under

in jesus’ name my grandfather, pentecost pastor, gently

falls backward. A small kick from his legs, sure, I can

lead you beside quiet waters but why can’t we just go

for a swim? Nan, all grace and sunglasses, floats by

with a crossword, six-letter word for social rank, starts

and ends with s?

My father’s folks paddle past, the phrase teach em to

fish… runs the length of their canoe. They raise their

mugs of tea with a wink as they tow the sun across the

sky, their grins possess a knowing I can’t quite place. I

don’t realize I’m floating on my back until the moon

appears above me and the pond’s gently in my ears,

whispering as above, so below in the voices of both

grandmothers at once

My father’s arms come under me, says heard you’re

feeling a little lost, nothin a few hours around the fire

won’t fix. He stands full height, a few stars caught in his

beard, carries me home in strides, his boots brush the

tips of black spruce like grass. From up here, we can see

Sandy Point, can see St. Paul Island as he wades out the

bay, Elmastukwek suddenly on my lips as we head to

Cedar Cove.

He takes my wallet, with its government-issued cards,

takes my christian guilt and self-doubt, drops them into

his parents’ old coffee-can kettle. I ask why can’t I just

burn it all? He hands me some matches, nods behind

me. My mother steps in from the surf on a wave of

rolling capelin—some things we shed, some we’re

steeped in. She adds the rising tide, a few newspaper

obituaries, the open throat of a pitcher plant.

Together, we build a pyre of kindling and driftwood,

filling it with birchbark, but I want to run. She hands me

the kettle, gently kisses my cheek. We know who you

are, but we can’t make you believe it. Shaking, I strike a

match to birch, watch the bark recoil, gift itself to fire.

Not brave, just tired of telling myself the same story, I

spit the phrase not enough into the can, break into

heaves and sobs, let the kettle boil.