Three Poems by Lisa Baird
Perigee
All we knew at first was that the moon was brighter
that summer, dimmed the other lights in the sky.
When it started to seem unusually huge
some dismissed this as mass hallucination,
pointed to the etymology of the word lunacy.
Menstrual cycles were disrupted.
Datura bloomed longer and more potent.
Amateur astronomers picked out details
of the tiniest craters and maria
through cheap binoculars.
As high tide soaked the first & second floors
of beachfront apartment buildings
while low tide left wider stretches of ocean floor
flinching like a dry eye, one theory
suggested that an asteroid had knocked the moon
off course.
For weeks the moon approached, slow
and terrifying. Physicists scrambled to predict
how long until tsunamis swallowed coastal cities,
until the moon’s new gravitational muscle
heaved the earth’s tectonic plates
like a drunk with a losing hand flipping a card table.
Everyone who was able spilled outside at moonrise,
dragged chairs to front lawns and sidewalks,
livestreamed the update to the other side of the planet.
Neighbours got beyond small talk. End of the World
parties took over our block every weekend.
People quit diets & bad jobs,
drove recklessly, said I love you.
The moon loomed larger still.
And glowed with its own yellow light
all month. Yolked-open. Unblinking.
Scientists repeated phrases
like inert ball of basalts and silicates
and cold dead mass. No one
was listening. Armed militia
climbed a mountain, took aim.
Coyotes and wolves howled,
audible in the suburbs.
Rumours circulated of an escape
plan to Mars. No one will forget
that night in August it sped up,
the collective gasp as the moon
swelled rapidly, zooming closer—
for one last good look?
to say here’s what you’ll be missing?
Even cicadas held still in the hush. Shadows
sharpened, snapped into place in the beckoning light
as the moon spun 180 degrees, showing us the other side
for the first and last time, paused—
and exited our slowdance.
Broke the ancient agreement of orbit
and swung free, leaving us alone
in an empty aching dark.
It Has Been Four Days Since You Read About the Monarchs
You too, are doomed, and though you’ve known
this for years, the end of this winged thing has thrust
past every defense and you’ve been mourning for days;
destruction of forest means the monarch has not
much to cling to. The inside of your mind is a grey sky,
your heart dry and still, some small part
of you whispering so this is despair.
It’s the compost that gets you off the couch,
the potato peels liquefying in the kitchen’s warmest
corner. So you drag the dripping tub outside to dump
it over the brimming compost bin. You open up the bottom
to scent the soil at the base, fresh earth that was kitchen
scrap two months ago.
The smell is rich enough to make you weep as you pull forth
a fistful, to cry harder as you fill a cracked bucket, and to sob
as you spread a moist black layer over next year’s garlic bed.
And as you fork it in, feeding life to life, you land on the other
side of despair which is where everything matters,
which is where tiny creatures tougher than you continue,
which is to say here is something to cling to,
and you bury both hands up to the wrists.
Things Found in the Forest
That was the year Spring came on fast and hot
like the dog waking you by panting in your face.
You didn’t even know you’d fallen asleep
on the couch, the blanket slid to the floor,
now you’re ripping down to the river in sandaled feet.
The trees grown over where the dump used to be—
the several meters of overgrown, of lush,
of bugs and small quick creatures in the greenery,
of mud hugging the bank, this living, undulating strip—
Things found in the forest: catnip and nettle, broken
bottle, river turtle. Baltimore oriole, canada goose, dog shit,
a sodden pair of jogging pants draped over a branch.
Feminist graffiti on a bench: HOES BEFORE BROS.
Dandelion dandelion dandelion. A disintegrating shopping bag
from that yoga store. Do one thing a day. Here at the river bend,
the fast hot Spring shakes you out of yourself. You
who weren’t ready for the wider sky.
Lisa Baird is a writer, a community acupuncturist, and a queer white settler living on Attawandaron/Mississaugas of the New Credit territory (Guelph ON). Her poetry has appeared in various journals including Arc, Rattle, Grain, Plenitude and Canthius. She is a contributor to the Lambda-award winning anthology The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Healthcare (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016) and to GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for our Times (Frontenac House, 2018). Her first book of poetry, Winter’s Cold Girls, was published by Caitlin Press in 2019. Find her online at www.lisabaird.ca.