From Under the Keel, published by House of Anansi in 2013. Michael Crummey is the author of four books of poetry and a book of short stories, and a winner of the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award, among other honours. He lives in St. John’s.
near Corner Brook, Newfoundland ca. 1940
This is where he told me to stand
under the washing on the line
He’d come up the hill lugging his camera
and set it down in the garden,
staring out over the harbour with both hands
to the small of his back like he’d just bought
the place from God
Didn’t see me there till I said hello,
him jumping and rubbing his palms together then,
like someone up to no good,
told me to stand over there,
never even asked after my name
I stood over there like he said
my dress billowing out with the washing
and I never felt so foolish
What do you want me to do I asked him
Look out at the water he said
I said What’s to look at out there?
You just look he said
My mother said he was a queer stick
to take a picture and not even
ask me to smile for it
She was hiding in the kitchen all this time
and never came out first or last
Wouldn’t be caught dead
talking to some man who’d seen
her small clothes faffering in the breeze