At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
A mosquito worries its way across the screen door
Looking for a gap
As my exhalations send it into blood frenzy
A leaf drifts to earth
Odd, since it’s early summer yet
I wonder if a caterpillar has eaten it through
A child tugs at her father impatiently
He’s talking to a neighbour at the end of the driveway
Postponing some outing
Now her singsong Daddy, Daddy
Increases in volume and frustration
Six birds trade places on two trees
At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
A rumour of a breeze
Stirs branches randomly
A seaplane flies overhead
Its pilot intent on the descent the plane is poised to make
A passenger looks out the bubble window
Wondering at the mundane lives playing out below
While the rooster next door proclaims his sovereignty
Reassuring his hens
Ruling his dominion
Insects cry
I hear traffic humming in the distance
At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
David Trudel © 2013
Back Seat Windows
When I was a child I would lock eyes
With other kids in the back seats of station wagons
As we hurtled down freeways
Or slowrolled through clogged streets
I would lock eyes
Trying to make some kind of psychic connection
Or anticipate a future meeting where decades later
Our eyes would remember
A moment held between us
Briefly as a hummingbird’s visit
When we were young
Looking at the world from inside the safety glass of the family car
It was easy to believe in innocence then
To think that everyone else was as safe as I was
In those days before I knew about torture
About abuse and cruelty
Frequent as the autumn rain
For too many
Now I wonder what happened to them
I try to recollect those faces
Dredged images from ripped memories
Some of those eyes must have been silently shrieking
Calling out for sympathy or salvation
Locked in rolling prisons moving closer to the next indignity
While I was worried about a music lesson I hadn’t practiced for
Or inconsequential bullshit
If I could return to those moments
I wouldn’t challenge fragile eyes with directness
I would look at you obliquely and offer you my passing tears
I would applaud you for carrying on
Holding your head up
As you looked out at a world
That held more sins than miracles
David Trudel © 2013
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Tagged as abuse, blank verse, childhood, creative writing, creativity, cruelty, domestic violence, free verse, poetry, sexual abuse, social commentary, torture