Gone west (for David)

                   Gone west

  

It seems in my life I have always

moved west, New Brunswick, Alberta,

the boardwalk behind the Quay;

it’s a left-handed sort of life

driving me heartwards, though never,

no never,

heartwise.

  

                                        that day

When I thought I saw you/ on the boardwalk

my guts jumped:                    it

jerked the hook in my colon

(you always knew about bait)

You know how it was:    I wanted to stand on my desk

on the last day of classes

and shout:  O captain!  My captain!

But you had your own rotation – I saw

it reel from view, and

(helpless to catch you)

watched your spiralling apogee.

What is the remotest segment of an orbit?

Booze, blondes.  Too much of

a good thing.  But I did love you.

We wandered, Pooh and Piglet in an

Escher maze, searching for heffalumps.

You calmly said, “Watch this,” and set fire

to my mind.

I saw you as the human yoyo, bobbing up and

                                                                   down,

sleeping, walking the dog, in and out

and ‘round the world.

I knew you’d be back, like hounds,

like a cycle of blood, like black

fruit springing into tree.  When the

string broke, I hid my eyes, and

said, but it’s only a lute,

it will heal itself,

half-hoping I was wrong.

I don’t know why or how God looks

after you, beached like Stanley’s whale,

stared at by the curious.  I don’t know

how God manages.  It was beyond me.

And so I kept on moving. 
                                
Margaret Gunning