A collection of poems drawn from my childhood. Moments remembered, revisited, and reconsidered.
the orchard
there were three trees
in my grandpa’s orchard.
all of them apple.
each of them sour.
not the kind that sweeten with time or patience—
the kind that pucker,
no matter when they leave the limb.
we would eat them,
my brothers and I.
with salt like my grandpa.
he ate dill and horseradish
straight from the garden.
sauerkraut.
a potato,
if he felt like it.
we wanted to be like him—
big and strong,
an iron gut.
but we were young,
and soft.
we believed him
when he hollered the porch:
“those things will twist you kids up inside,
like pretzels.
he died suddenly
of a heart attack
when I was sixteen.
right there on his tractor.
years later,
lighting split two of the trees.
the other
withered.
mullet lake
the lake’s rolling waves
driven by the thunder.
dragging the rain
that bounced and rolled
down red canvas walls.
we stayed inside, flashlights clenched
like jarred fireflies,
their yellow beams darting
across the veiled night.
we donned our sleeping bags
like cape and cowl
safe in our superheroes.
our shaky candy-coated fingers,
staining the newsprint.
together, we felt safe
though certain death
was just a stray bolt away.
tough boys,
even when the ground shook us.
we cast sideways glances,
daring each other to crack.
waiting…
through the rain,
and the lightning,
and the waves.
until sleep found us
and the shore
was silent.
none of us did.
please rewind
the borrowed film
before the DVD
rows of worn cardboard spines
Blockbuster,
Family Video,
convenience stores
Act II buttered popcorn
Raisinettes in half-filled boxes
VHS tapes
the mechanical spooling of brown ribbon
whirring in tandem
the hum stretching the moment
streaks of choppy black and white
cleared by a thumb
“tracking”
the white-on-blue warning
no duplication under penalty of—
the lion’s roar
family dinner at the tube
on a stained comforter
a film a night
one-liners our language
neon spines in a crowded cabinet
now obsolete in basement bins
waiting to be tossed or donated
but
I
refuse
Nick Viau 