eiko kawano

The coolest people are the ones who are willing to be enthusiastic.

I work from home, so as you can imagine I run into loads of people over the course of a day, and all of them want to know one thing: who am I wearing?

Red felt slippers: handmade by stepmother
“Livin n Lovin” jogging pants: No Name brand, purchased at sporting goods/grocery store near Forks, Washington
T-shirt or tank top: not sure; it’s too cold in here to lift up my sweatshirt. I know I’m wearing something under there. I think. Maybe.
Sweatshirt: Costco
Toque: Dollarama
Tightly-fastened wind-resistant hood: see sweatshirt
7 year-old terry cloth housecoat: model’s own

To contact stylist, leave comment with name and phone number. Consultations available for $17.00 through PayPal.

Back in the day, “Internet” was a formal name. Does anyone even need the word anymore? The internet just is. And it’s my pathway to doom.

Today I attempted to make a poem out of the “preview snippet” function in my Sent Mail folder and, realizing how mundane and full of exclamation marks so many messages were, felt a bit blue. “Omg that dog is so cute!!!” “Whoo hoo New Years I can’t wait either!!!” “What should we eat for dinner?!!!!”

And see, in a more productive life what would happen is, that blue feeling (some would call it “depression”, an insult to depressives if there ever was) would prompt me to wander around the house, staring at rooms that need organizing, piles of papers that need sorting, stuffed dolls and tinker toys that need playing with (we don’t have kids, why so many toys?), peering into the fridge at aging take-out containers, slumping over the counter with an empty wine bottle and wondering if 10:30 am is too early to open the vodka. I’d go into the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror and be thankful in advance for cosmetics and hair products. Eventually I’d come back to the sofa, to the narrow strip of cushion allocated by the cat, and grumbling, I’d pick up that pen and start writing.

Now I flail around on the web.

I have a rule: if I’m not writing, I have to at least do something related to writing. I have to read something, get excited, get inspired. So I fish around until I find a good story, and then I learn about the author, and check out her website, and read three or four other things she’s written, and add a comment on the one I like best, and save the stuff my attention span won’t tolerate right now, and buy a few of her e-books, and follow her on Twitter, and think, “I should be tweeting,” and read a few pages of her blog, and think, “I should be blogging, or at least submitting something for publication somewhere, anywhere, which I would, except I don’t have product, which I would have, if I stopped goofing off and actually did some writing.”

The worst part is, I do have product. But by this point my brain is too overwhelmed to do anything with it.

I go back to the sofa. I pet the cat, who gives me a look like I should have asked permission. I want to tell him I’m the human here, but I’m afraid of repercussions. To make some space I give him a shove. He stays put, and then sets his chin on my ankle and sighs. I avoid making eye contact with the leftover Halloween decorations. I check my email one last time. The first line of today’s Publisher’s Lunch dispatch reads, “Yipes! Careful with that pen.” I say, “Screw you, Internet,” and I turn off the router and start to write.

Yes,
but:
Why can’t I live on one bowl of cereal a day?

It’s a silly thing.
You don’t write about your grandparents.
Oh, but I miss them.

Upstairs in a treasure chest:
One of his sweaters, burgundy.
That cheek-rub feeling of wool.
You can smell that little bit of scotch he sometimes had before dinner.
You can hear 7-Up pouring over ice,
The handing over of thick glass,
Sitting in the living room:
Teak chairs, stacking tables, a bookshelf with The Hardy Boys.

Each grandchild got a sweater.
An apron, too, floral-patterned,
faded from so much washing.
You can see her in the green one: pulled tightly around a fancy blouse and skirt.
She was the best dresser, we said:

Afterwards,
Afterwards.
Upstairs in the hallway closet,
Going through her things, two mothers and five grandchildren,
Holding up a dress she wore when she was twenty.
“Wasn’t her waist so tiny?”

Laughing, crying a little
Holding on to bits of cloth.
Trying to remember
Trying to savour
That disappearing smell on their clothes.

Then he put down the lesson plan
Shook the shock from his hair
Wiped the dust from the chalkboard.

Slats of wood ran against his back
Flesh poking through the spaces in between
A memory of metal,
That old bright linoleum
Rounded heads of nails and sneaking fingers underneath

He thought, Maybe today I’ll be a fisherman, I’ll catch something sharp and alive.
Keep it steady while it writhes
Like dissecting each objection from young mouths,
Young hands in the air.

But there is no water here
Just paper and dry land
Ink-stained lips and gawping mouths
The ridges of fingers and sneaking dust underneath

He sighed an earthquake then,
And the letters of the alphabet fell into place.
Split open the ground
And rows of desks violently aligned.
The apple in his desk lay rotting, rotting
That old bright appreciation

Before the bell rang he opened the window
Drew the blind an inch or so
Young feet come marching, he put one trembling hand on the windowsill
Hoping for a flood.

There’s a fire behind the boathouse.
Plastic grass twisting in the heat, now blackening, now slinking into the ground
As if it did something wrong when it burned
Shamed by the long straight line of the army
Flames marching in time with the drums

If I turn away right now, if I run because I’m scared,
Will you forgive me?

Next to the old barbecue is a propane tank,
Not quite empty.
No one knows what kind of damage it can do if it explodes,
But here: picture it, how high it might fly
This happened in Thailand a few years ago.

Right around the time you took me on the water
Said I love you while you held my head under
Wondering what it would take to make me breathe

The smell of wood now from the back of the building
This is our curtain call, the last encore
Red fingers pull apart the stage,
Race for the door

In your beach chair you crack another beer
Check your phone, scratch your head
Pick up the paper, turn to all the numbers
Count them one by one, tapping in time with the burn.

The father said
They connect like this:
Blue to blue, edge to edge, see how that curve fits that piece and that other one, how it wraps around.
You can start with four corners
Work your way in
Look how I’ve made a bit of sky.

The boy nodded his head.
And began to understand,
Saw sand and water and a seagull flying into the sun

The father said
You go ahead now
I have other things to do.

And the boy prepared to work
And between his fingers the weight of cardboard
And in his eyes lines connecting,
In ears the whispering click
The coming perfection of shape meeting shape

You might imagine it spread out before you
The chaos of some perfect pattern
And reaching out you push sand into water
Drag water into sky
Take up all the air
Drown the seagull as it burns.

The boy heard the front door close
Heard the noise go too.
Held in each trembling hand a piece of the puzzle
Eyes closed, head tucked like a bird
Cheek to water
Waiting to drown.

After being pulled he snapped right back.
Then we lined up and marched in a very straight way,
Marched so straight our feet hurt.
And stood, and gazed.
Three-foot boy with a fake moustache come running, come running down the line,
Past that man selling hot dogs on a stick.
(The man who charges extra for napkins.)
Painted faces throw wax-wrapped toffee, throw so hard their shoulders hurt.
Scrambling on the ground you get a look at those slippery flowers
The art, from a distance, of some dreary man-made dream.
Air-filled circles stream forward and then up, swim high until they disappear from popping.

We who stood there watching
For some moments held our hearts out
Imagined it, her:
Gliding without wheels atop those cakes, those swans, that giant plastic squirrel
She is that one waving,
That one on the loudspeaker,
Those three dancing can-can girls, all those practiced moves.

On the walk home we went out of step
Cleared candy from our teeth
Dislodging sticky bits of a forgotten parade
Checked for evidence of pickpockets.