RECIPE FOR QUIETUDE, by Jody chan

not the ravenous day
not the maple tree waking
not the mangy squirrel decamping to the garbage shed
not the nod and swerve of oncoming foot traffic
not when my parents phone before work and I am five again unbolting my jaw in the back of the car
not the salt water gargle to render the back of my throat inhospitable
not the dribble of sun into the courtyard over the bike racks like rotten cheddar
not the retired pine candle
not the oak’s bare branch aflame with budding leaves
not vegetables softening at the back of the fridge
not the woman spreading bread crumbs on her porch
not the dance parties I barely attended but I miss the mingled sweat of bodies viscerally
not clothes shedding their virality in a plastic bag by the door
not the front yard foaming with coltsfoot nor the dead mouse
head crushed on the sidewalk beside it
not pigeons communing over dust and scraps
not the threat of droplets suspended in air in water propelled from a runner’s hot mouth
each near-interaction marinated in vigilance
likewise the books I meant to read, on grief, on healing, on major and minor feelings, on epigenetics, on trauma stewardship, on the next American revolution, workbooks on transformative justice, on writing the wound, several vegetarian cookbooks, sprayed across my bedroom floor
not the clatter of long-legged cranes stacking luxury concrete across the street
not to house those in need of housing but those with two maybe three
seasonal properties in Collingwood and Florida
not video therapy sessions
not the partial privacy of the bathtub
not the unleashed mastiff pissing on lilacs
not the way my therapist sounds over a bad connection I trail as her voice falters from one second to the next asking why I haven’t cried in weeks
not the woodpecker drumming for company
not chosen family fined for driving in one car without ID
not the stroke of dried lavender in a grief-green bottle once Shiraz
drunk to observe my best friend’s birthday
not a large gathering only five or six
not the unfinished conversations I stack behind my sternum like wet lumber
not because grief looms at the window
or because this is harder and simpler than I imagined solidarity would feel
not hoarding frozen pizzas not calling the police
not the audacity of landlords collecting what they do not need
not the scent of an evening not shared with another
not the leftover lentils I spilled on my feet
not the new deaths daily
not the newsfeed I dissociate into
not the strangers whose profiles I scan seeking comfort where love isn’t
my eyelids caught in the screen’s blue flicker

Jody Chan is a writer, organizer, Taiko drummer, and therapist-in-training based in Toronto. They are the poetry editor for Hematopoeisis, a 2017 VONA alum, a member of the Winter Tangerine Workshops Team, and the 2018 winner of the Third Coast Poetry Contest. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is published in BOAAT, Looseleaf Magazine, Nat. Brut, The Shade Journal, and elsewhere. They can be found online at www.jodychan.com and offline in bookstores or dog parks.