Musgrave’s Daughter By Meredith MacDonald

Susan Musgrave writes violets into my dreams that leave me flush

alone in a field with rows of chiseled stone 

and flowers, strewn by the wind 

mauve, magenta, yellow, fuchsia, and persimmon orange

i long to lie

in a room near the click of her typewriter keys, keys that transform 

into a gentle metronome

that lull and sway me away from a confusing earth

one I have never understood

Susan will be the only one to fret about my absence

she will write Albert Einstein into Haida Gwaii

Albert will use his theory of relativity to share with Susan 

that my whereabouts is not baffling at all

he simply pinpoints the time and space  

of the place I wait alone 

I will lie   

on the hard floor while Susan writes about grief and loss

and Mother’s love 

until her wooden floor yields and I am asleep on a bed

overstuffed with down

as gentle as the fluffy underside of a bird’s belly

a bird much like the Bluebird that perches on my window ledge 

a window i have never opened

like the overhead lights I have never shut off 

It is a wild place 

violets multiply on the underbrush of the mountain side

a cruel memory steals my breath away 

hands, my throat, a face too close 

I laugh maniacally

my head lolls off my neck and rolls down the incline 

I’m dying

It is absurd and l will read each 

lovely blue word 

written with as much careful intention as the paper Valentine passed from desk-to-desk signatures left by every boy in my class

No one wants to be your Valentine

I pour over algorithms to understand what

perpetuates attraction

but I lust only for books

let me read your unopened hand

unclench it first 

Foreshadow the nightfall

9000 pitch black windows

the creak of the floorboards

my wounds

your weeping sounds

We are fetal and tiny

I lie at the foot of Susan’s down filled bed

and rest 

like her house dog 

her typewriter keys lull me away

I am not Susan Musgrave’s daughter

I am alive and her daughter is not 

I may slip away on silent feet

or we may conspire to clasp hands 

walk through her sandy beach

and slip away

into the night tide.