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.