JOANNA M. WESTON

Joanna M. Weston, M.A. has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty years. She has two middle-readers, ‘The Willow Tree Girl’ and ‘Those Blue Shoes’, in print; also ‘A Summer Father’, poetry, published
by Frontenac House of Calgary. Please read on for samples of her poetry. For more go to her website: http://www.islandnet.com/~weston/



FLIGHT DELAY

ponytail bald hands in pockets
they saunter run
drag luggage backpack
coat-slung weary

on night-dark window
their reflections pass
like unclaimed baggage
endlessly going nowhere

I watch a blank sky
waiting for one plane
not to Toronto Seattle
Fort McMurray Winnipeg
but over the mountain
to Victoria
five hours late

I eat nuts
drink water read
spectator to procession
of height weight
dress intent

the promenade
continues hour
by hour
cell-phoned jeaned
dyed hair bearded
short sleeved paunched
pacing the clock
into flight



REMEMBER WHO

voices bang
back and round the building
faces catch in crevices
names swing like cobwebs
I fumble to catch
a phrase from the past
while a smile
rises and fades
hands wave
and a memory slides
into my vocabulary
of forgotten people



THE DOMESTIC ZOO

each animal clamors
to be fed, stroked, heard

as I try to remember
whether they are snake, fox …

I write notes, stop to touch fur
notice thorned paw, fierce eye

run between vacuum cleaner
plums to be canned

and wonder which task
to complete first



BIRD-LIFE

I am tempted to lay my bones down
for starlings to read

to let my story become more than
a space between sparrows

but rather a patchwork
embroidered with blue jays

a cloud-space shot through
with a scavenge of gulls

a rising air-current
with an up-surge of eagles

and the swift fall
of a hawk’s dive



LOSING THE THREAD

our conversation moves
from stool to rocking chair
picks up trailing fingers

curls over one son’s head
and weaves arabesques of laughter
over the coffee table

until it drops into a cove
under the chesterfield
to be eaten by cats