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Tammy Armstrong's work has appeared in literary
journals in Canada, US, UK and Europe. She is the author of Translations: Aistreann
(novel), Unravel (poetry) and Bogman's Music (poetry), which was
nominated for a Governor General's Award.
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Rogersville: Garage Man's Daughter Back From the City
Exhaustion wraps you like brilliant wrenches
in the too orderly garage
where your uncle who'd fallen asleep at the wheel
in the 70's off the old highway
won't work on blue cars
anything resembling sky, sea, bruise.
I waited past midnight on a milk crate
re-reading outdated Popular Mechanics
staving off your apologies
for the carburetor, the dirt road
without street lamps
my marooning
in a darkness
that cramped and hemorrhaged
cast shadows on the shells of cars--
cumbersome, bovine.
Far from the city
with its unending dog mouth hues
I'm still the daughter of garage men
oil and dust muted in my veins
affection for your grease-stamped knuckles
how you angle your arms away
to keep me clean, unoriented--
your hesitation to bring me back
rural, small town cluttered.
On the drive home
two bucks will run across the line
I'll think stallions, a broken fence
my percolating fear:
just brush fire eyes in high beams
all of it fish tailing the ditches:
your hand on my knee
cupping what I'd forgotten to expect:
how foreign we seem
after ten years in the city.
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After Angie There Was a Fear
Stellular rays rooting
bed folds of cerebellum--
five year expansion
until CAT scans were tidal pools of shape
the brain coral a basin of growth.
She grew astilbe along the property line:
lotion bloom
meniscus balm brushing
dog-eared petals
until the backyard was lush
and I was too shy to compliment
statuesque plants shot through with rains.
Squared off
construction site stones
to ring the ash saplings
irrigate the yard
until the sun basted the sky
in unbelievable light--
a fantastic silverware drawer.
Guilt because we were the same age
and it was her last summer
troweling the wild carrot and field mustard
the morning glory that tampered the fence.
How were we to know
the body was a deviated shore
trivets of thought balancing the pain
body collapsing like a yanked oven door
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Sleep Paralysis
This may be the last time I emerge
shaken by this dark horse
drank deep into our bed--
your name marinated in my throat
but seeping a disorder
demerol inebriated prickv
drawn into the mattress--
heart-swamped.
Bone apparatus of a gazebo
fit only for paralytic dreams
and this body that has wrapped
around mine: palming my spine
when you've had too much to drink.
Even bolstered with that kind of love
I won't be reached.
No exorcism can stop a locked tongue--
haphazard muscle molar-knuckled:
tension headache belted above my eyes
the indecency of this nexus
soliciting my corrugated breathing beside us.
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2004-2007 the Dublin Quarterly--to see familiar things with unfamiliar eyes!
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