I Hear Wings

By Janice Colman

I hear starlings in my ear
                         in my ear
sounds shift, they blind
my eyes. Find me a home where a door
                          is a door. A handle
that does its bidding. The obdurate buzz
 
in my ear, this day seeking
shelter they flap beneath
my flesh, their wings graze
the under-layers of my skin like a cat’s
 
whiskers. I hear cats see through the tips.
Tips quiver without contact, I see
the wings of starlings. Their perennial comments
causing blight, a blizzard that scales or streams, I
 
hear in the corners of my eyes, I peer
out from beneath the corner of my ears. Can you
                      find me a home where a door
                      is a door

---

Variation on I Begin with Love

By Janice Colman

Italicized lines are from "Duplex (I Begin with Love)," by Jericho Brown

Once I loved a smooth-skinned man
who wore a salmon shirt that smelled of snails— 
in a burnt brown sedan   my bottom bare he stabbed
*Winstrol V five milligrams   the weight       
of that moment   the rented sedan parked
by the Lakeshore  beneath a full moon
we exchanged compounds like rings
doth thee & I do—I thought we
would deadlift forever
men who love me are men who miss me— 

(waving his large left
hand  the queen’s wave complete
so tidy we cross
together and toward   strong slow-dance strut
the man who loves me is the man who will miss me)

knee wraps crisscrossed over my tender caps:
XX and =    I stood stooped under the warped
bar as if in the stocks   breathing smoke eyes shut
with straight-ahead vision I backstep four while he
spots his hands each side my waist  feet
shoulder width  my spine curling like a folded flag
so I dig in through the ground I dig in
and up and up and up  rack it he says
and I do ha three hundred and fifteen pounds this
woman in the dream when I am an island
 
(my spine flattened—how to straighten strand by strand 
to stand; easier to call spot! yet I push up—sprout wings I fly)
 
in the dream where I am an island  I sit in trees 
trunk thick  spread wide and tall
enough to wonder at, I wave from the middle
bough slide
to root bottom   in the bushes  in the house
warm within walls I sing   I chat with bushes converse
with peacocks  I relocate without footprints
fly without wings I am
transformed transposed  an Angel’s trumpet
in the dream where I am an island
 
I am a golden peacock without a country
solo or in pride   like a newborn mewling I cry 
I squawk   take flight to the highest 
tree   move though time’s journey
to the end of my days and then some when
I come to rest  settle my train flaring 
turquoise wild cerulean blue with swirls 
cadmium yellow — I am a Cheewhat. I am Ginseng.  
Nodding Trillium and Pallas’s Wallflower.  I grow 
green with hope. I’d like to end there.

​*Note: Winstrol V is a steroid

---

Pantoum: The Bends

By Janice Colman

Every day I get the bends, harbinger of
what prowls in that dreary deep—my life is sharp
edged the rusted-tooth sallow saw even
in winter ready for a fresh kill—tell me
 
what prowls—life is sharp-edged
messy as a plump peach bleeding when bitten
in winter ready for a fresh kill. I should
know better than to leave it outside, the elements
 
like a plump peach bleeding like a pineapple turning— 
almost out of season. At night when the elements settle
I should know better than to leave it outside
when the elements settle notes moon-high, low and
 
all between. Almost out of season at night
I sink beneath notes their ghosts left
behind, when the elements settle notes
moon-high and low sashay down
 
the block. Beneath notes their ghosts left
behind, in their solemn quicksand I sing
even when moon-high or low, they sashay
down the aisle—my legs tangled
 
in their solemn quicksand I sing
my way to the bottom, parting water
down the aisle my legs tangled,
deep & dark I dive. Every day I get the bends. 

---

Neurodiversity

By Janice Colman

                                her rowboat   fawn bark           
                                rendered    her rowboat river green
                                inside pearl-grey peeling
                                wooden oars waiting   and keen in metal
                                       
                                hinges   she leans   back      oars scattered
                                slapping like a seagull’s wings
                                flailing    please I say    pull
                               
                                wedding right to left   but she’s left
                                handed     my daughter      she shakes  
                                with her left    presented proudly     
 
 
but it’s her row across the Atlantic    she scopes
land where I sight a sea     frame azure
and sparkling     let me
wear her glasses   pale pink plastic
 
magic frames   she calls   there’s land ho   
palm trees     snow
capped mountains ho   moon stars
sun side-by-side  
 
I’m heading straight         she points  
the boat    pirouetting   pitches then
like a hawk-moth hovers    mete out your magic    I say 
 
let us sail the seas you and me
and she says         that I can do    

---

In her early seventies, Janice Colman is the proud mother of two powerful daughters, director of the non-profit Relay of the Arts for the Next Generation, and founder of a canine hiking service. She has published poetry and memoir excerpts in long con magazine, The New Quarterly, Zeugma, and Straitjacket. Janice is vigorously addressing her later-life writing career.

She lives in Toronto.