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In and out of Spain

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Spanish gardens, donkey trails.

Up steep dusty mountains we went, the four of us,

then we walked along rocky ocean cliffs, poking long sticks

in the waves. Whether it was an octopus’ play or anger,

tentacles wrapped tight around the tree-limb,

my brother screamed with excitement, pulled for a while

then let go.

 

Under surveillance at the corner store, we were

government-spied on

while buying popsicle rockets, licking,

lazily skipping back to the pool. I snuck

behind our apartment building

to feed dinner scraps to the desolate feline strays.

 

My mother bought us dyed pink chicks at Easter,

chick-feet running across a tile hard floor.

My father brought them back to the market

to face their inevitable doom.

 

Baby teeth, my brother’s and mine, tied to a string

tied to an open door.

 

Grandmother with her long

boney brown fingers, her fearful sins and Lucifer

always behind our backs, up elevators,

fueling the first of my many nightmares, and also

my morality.

 

A white Volkswagen. A massive pinkish sun,

making friends with Spanish boys breaking

bread beside Flamenco dancers.

 

There was a shark in the water.

I was lifted onto my father’s shoulders,

as he ran fast, past the menacing fin to the shore.

 

A diving board, lessons in breathing

and earning a swimmer’s endurance,

lessons in lifting my double-jointed arm to gain

front-crawl perfection.

 

Mother’s blonde and blonder hair.

Everynight parties.

 

Holland shoes

instead of stockings at Christmas.

Learning math at the kitchen table.

My father’s arms carrying me home

after a late night gathering of strange comic-book creatures,

laughing, making us little ones sit at the smaller table, ignoring

our just-out-of-toddlerhood need for adult attention.

 

Kindergarten handwriting at Bambi School,

Rice pudding everyday for lunch. Naranja-head,

children pointing, making fun because of my orange hair.

A pencil jabbed into my upper arm –

40 years later, the lead is still visible.

 

When we drove across the Denia boarder, into France,

then landed for months in London,

I could see my father’s memories coming back, his disappointments

overtaking. Maybe it was because it was in London

where his own father died, left India for, only to die

two weeks later in his wife’s arms,

leaving five children behind.

 

The first year back in Montreal,

my father started drinking heavily while my mother gave up,

got involved with her celebrity journalism and multitude of friends. 

I remember going to get breakfast, my father passed out

on the kitchen floor. I remember

in and out of Spain.

..

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Copyright © 2014 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “blackmail press issue 39”

 

http://www.blackmailpress.com/AG39.html

http://www.blackmailpress.com/Index39.html

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Published in “Think Pink, Issue 2” Pink.Girl.Ink. Press, May 2015

http://pinkgirlink.blogspot.ca/2015/05/allison-grayhurst-poetry.html

http://www.lulu.com/shop/various-author-compilation/think-pink-issue-2/ebook/product-22154515.html

think_pink___issue__2 download

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Published in “Section 8 Magazine” June 2015

http://www.section8magazine.com/sonnet-mondal/allison-grayhurst/

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Click to access Make_the_Wind20160404Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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You can listen to the poems my clicking below:

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“Her (Allison Grayhurst’s) poetry appears visceral, not for the faint of heart, and moves forward with a dynamism, with a frenetic pulse. If you seek the truth, the physical blood and bones, then, by all means, open the world into which we were all born,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of the Feminist Caucus.

“What a treasure Allison Grayhurst is. Her gift? To unfold for us life at this intensity of feeling and revelation. Who knew truth and beauty could be so intertwined and so passionate?,” Taylor Jane Green BA, RIHR, CH, Registered Holistic Talk Therapist, and author of Swan Wheeler: A North American Mythology, Swan – A Planetary Mythology, and The Rise of Eros, 2014.

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