Chinese tomb

By Louise Carson

​The shades are cold and I am not
a wine vessel of the Spring and Autumn Period,
or four frightened hares,
or leather armour reproduced in clay.
 
I am the water garden with bronze water birds
and figures of musicians,
pleasure for the afterlife,
sky rushing above.

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Song: Saturday

By Louise Carson

​The boys deliver the flyers –
a different boy every week –
I try to make contact as I see
a different boy every week –
the challenge to smile and wave
at the different boys every week
 
Saturdays at the grocery store
the same girls and women serve
the smiles and courtesy different
from the boys    wild geese    coming    going

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Song: broken

By Louise Carson

​The large plant pot my friend brought
has fallen apart – two chunks cracked off lie in the driveway
the pot-shaped frozen earth contains
red morning glory seeds and catnip roots
the sun spills
from the pine to the carport roof
 
Today the pot’s a problem to be solved
on one side frozen into snow – on the other broken side
earth   seed   exposed – sun warms the flowers coming
we can’t contain or slow

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Book signing

By Louise Carson

​I sit in Chapters,
one of the workers
who makes its bricks.
 
Other workers
arrange the bricks
according to colour.
 
I’ve gone back fifty years
to being that kid
with her lemonade stand.
 
I smile and swivel my head and nod
like a crazy plastic
photo-sensitive sunflower.

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And a bird...

By Louise Carson

I have tried to slip these words
into a poem over many summers,
but always drowned in the details.
 
 
The heart stares at summer’s preening.
 
 
And a bird sings.

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Gusto

By Louise Carson

That summer, what saved me,
was a free preview of the Gusto channel.
Four months – the exact length of my chemo servitude –
listening to soothing British, cheeky Aussie voices.
Home construction in the morning, cooking shows at night.
 
I fasted or barfed or ate TV dinners, or lay on the sofa
unable to clean the sink or cut the lawn. Neupogen
injections kept me from crashing.
 
Now I’m getting fat, can’t say no to food, and look –
the taps gleam, the grass is short and edged.
 
Thank you, Gusto. Live life with Gusto.
Fun all day. Food all night.*

​*Gusto’s slogan

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​Louise Carson lives in a bungalow surrounded by gardens. She paid for it by teaching music. Now she just writes. Her three collections of poetry are The Truck Driver Treated for Shock, haiku, Yarrow Press, 2024; Dog Poems, Aeolus House Press, 2020; and A Clearing, Signature Editions, 2015. She also writes mysteries and historical fiction, and her latest in these genres are The Cat Laughs, Signature, 2025; and Third Circle, land/sea press, 2022. Louise lives near Montreal, Quebec.