Lover
Lover
Naomi Pattison-Williams
I.
Ada Limón has a beautiful laugh—
warm and fresh as pepper. You listen
as she speaks of the world’s ribcage
swelling with breath, of burying
a frozen bird beneath the feeder
and of loving the word lover,
with all its incandescent longing
to yield so wholly to another.
And something stirs—
right here, where you’re most afraid—
and stretches out her arms
in the late afternoon light.
An hour later you climb into your car
after a walk along the frozen creek,
face burning from the icy wind
that has slowly thickened your cheeks,
and has slowly given edges—precise
as pine needles—to your sleeping,
scattered thoughts. The breath
that gathered as crystallite sheen
on your scarf begins to melt
into the weft of wool,
pearling as water before it does.
At the grocery store checkout,
you double back on yourself
retracing your steps to choose
a clutch of dusky pink tulips—
the young buds standing to attention,
their arrow-tip ends yearning
toward so much sky.
II.
I don’t want to die, says a 3-year-old,
Crayola yellow plate smattered with detritus
of the daal that was deemed too spicy.
A recent preoccupation, I fumble again
for words that will build soft walls
around his fears, even as I know
he needs not walls
but sails,
my love ever his safe harbour.
After my words subside
I draw him near, bony shoulders still
(for once) in my arms, and feel
the cacophonous swell
of his questions slowly quiet. Listen
to the chickadees on the deck,
come for their evening feast.
III.
Early next morning, I see
the tulips in their narrow vase,
their edges less severe now, the one
bending over, drunken and soft,
over the vase’s red rim.
Maybe this is what I should have said:
See how each stem has begun to bend
under the weight of her petals—
now open-mouthed and aflame?
Don’t be afraid of them,
my love. Don’t be afraid to yield.
Don’t be afraid.
Naomi Pattison-Williams
Homemaker & Poet
Naomi is grateful to live at asiniskaw sipisis, Treaty 6 territory in rural Alberta, raising two little boys and writing about life as it happens. Having written a poetry chapbook called Fragments as part of her MA in Theology and the Arts, her poetry has also appeared or is forthcoming in Fathom Magazine, CRUX Journal and Sheloves Magazine.
Photography by Taisiia Shestopal