What To Do When I Am Gone

By Ben Robinson

The to-do list remains unchanged

Mom wants a will

Cracked bathroom countertop

Missing fireplace tile

A flagstone walkway we swore we wouldn’t shovel another winter

We paint the white walls

A whiter shade of white

Patch the old holes

And drill new ones

Two inches to the left

I shut the medicine cabinet

And the chunk of purple quartz perched on top

Crashes down and through the basin

Of the bathroom sink

For ten days we brush our teeth in the shower

I clean the black dust from the windowsills

With a baby wipe

---

Phone alert pings

Replace furnace filter

Our hatchback gets dragged by a transport truck

Right beside the hospital

Shreds the baby’s door

So we lift him out the window

Six thousand dollars and eight days later

You wouldn’t know which door

I send B. a picture of the scat beneath the lilac

​And he replies, unwell cat

---

Al expected a groundhog

But woke to a possum in the trap

The morning after releasing it

A fresh tunnel beneath the sagging fence

New claw marks in the shed door

In order to put away the baby’s stacking toy

One must complete the baby’s stacking toy

8pm and I am on my knees

Trying to distinguish ill-cut squares

From ill-cut rectangles

I’ve washed the same three pans

I wash every night

Tomorrow when they have dripped dry

​I’ll return them to the cupboard

---

On Fridays, His Teacher Lets Them Watch Paw Patrol at Lunch

By Ben Robinson

The last line
of the class newsletter reads,
If you have concerns
about your child’s
participation in,
or understanding of, conflict,
please let us know
before November 11th.
At Jim’s first hockey game,
the chief of police dropped
the ceremonial puck.
There were four fights
in the first period.
My grandfather was
concerned, but I assured him
Jim had no framework
for such actions. Same
the biannual lockdown drill,
the plastic bones dangling
from the neighbour’s tulip tree
all week, unremarked upon.
Years ago, I skimmed a study
on violent video games,
whether they encourage
aggressive behaviours or act
as release. The conclusion:
no effect in either direction.
I cling to the spirit
of this remembered finding,
its introduction of
the unseen third option,
but am unsure where
it leaves me. Two months
into kindergarten, he is
importing new games
from the playground:
Smashup Derby,
Protect the Queen,
a version of football
that is entirely tackling.
The border between
his brother’s delight
and distress is fine
and often hard to discern
from the next room.
When questioned, he replies,
Do you know why I said
by accident? Because
I like it better than on purpose.
At the soccer final, security
waves a detector wand
over my torso, then
ushers him through.
A second guard
makes me empty
my water bottle
but leaves Jim’s full.
We find our seats
tuck our bag underneath.
When it is time for the anthem
​he knows every word.

---

Full Time

By Ben Robinson

Six months into the position
the Canada East superintendent
took me for Caesar wraps next to the Cineplex
and as the cheque came
inquired about my eschatology.
 
The elders wanted me on the ordination track;
I just needed lunch, a job,
wasn't thinking past the end
of the pay period, liked
that we fed people.
 
An English major studying
Shelley and Stoker, I had no idea
what the word meant, would have
thought my request for clarification
disqualified me from any further meals
 
though my tenure finished with neither
resignation nor firing, rather,
I returned from summer break to learn
the church had been shuttered by
its so-called parent due to poor attendance.
 
Twelve years later, whatever answer
I attempted at the table that day
is lost to me, my mind retaining
only the question, his untouched
​plate before him.

---

Make Belief

By Ben Robinson

My son gouged my nose
while I was pretending to be a hawk
devouring him. Now I have to attend
the library conference with this non-
imaginary wound on display, a confession
we are perennially behind
on personal hygiene, that he and I
have made a game of predator and prey,
​that I am liable to walk him
too far into pretend.

---

He is headed for
the monthly Kindness Assembly
where an anthropomorphic red-tail
will award hearts to the students
who best exemplify the virtue in question.
Their classroom is a family affair,
the teacher’s mother often
her substitute. Her dad, a prosthetist,
has visited twice: first on
Terry Fox Day to pass around
his hands, then last week again
with Pinch the peregrine falcon who
​to their unanimous disgust
eats only raw meat.

---

At 17, I met a missionary
whose declared hierarchy was
God first, wife second, children third,
rankings he delineated
in their company, among friends
and strangers. I still cannot fathom
such clarity, such merciless conviction.
Shortly after we met
he was trampled while trying
to photograph elephants, his wife
and kids returning to the States
​to be with her parents.

---

Half asleep on the train home
three turkey vultures glide above
the harbour and I feel
Jim bound in my talons again
that creaturely fear enveloping
his eyes as our game drifts
somewhere too real. No saviour
or mother at hand, he swings
​his little nails, desperate
to peel back my feathers.

---

​Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. His first book, The Book of Benjamin, an essay on naming, birth, and grief was published by Palimpsest Press in 2023. His poetry collection, As Is, was published by ARP Books in September 2024. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.