new from above/ground press: Abject Lessons, by Jennifer Baker

Abject Lessons
Jennifer Baker
$4

Pilgrim

I

barn swallow barrel rolls

and phonemic slippages

chase cloud-shadow yokelisms

back to the bush

II

until I was 15

I believed a crick was different

from a creek

stretched thinner

scraping itself under roads

through aluminum tunnels

populated with turtles

a crick snapped

III

olfactory archeology

of sawdust, oil and earth

reveals a sitting-room with wood panelling

and that John Wayne clock

his legs tick-tocking

Whaddayasay Pilgrim

IV

the ghost I never met, but imagined

wading among the bones of drowned horses

down by the crick

is missing half his face

he reaches out to me

through his brother's ruined life

& my mother's anxious vigilance

he once followed me to Montreal

and came back to life

he still grips me by the diaphragm

and mocks my unshakeable belief

that I can be ready for anything 

V

since 10^th grade

Del Jordan has been whispering in my ear

forget the lurking idyll

it all comes out gothic

no unicorns but horse bones

swallowed by the quick sand

at the edge of the field

VI

my grandfather's accounts of this

are unconfirmed but by the fact

that I sank thigh-deep in sewage

in the recently harvested field

on Thanksgiving Day when I was 7

my older brother

like so many times since

pulled that screaming child

from the stinking earth

that threatened to swallow her

wholeness

seepage:

this is a photograph of me

VII

don't tell my mother

it all comes out gothic

despite the lurking idyll

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2014
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jennifer Baker was raised in Exeter, Ontario, where she divided her time between town and her grandparents’ farm. She is currently a part-time professor and PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

[Jennifer Baker launches Abject Lessons as part of the pre-ottawa small press book fair reading on November 7, 2014 at The Carleton Tavern, alongside Dave Currie, Frances Boyle, Anita Dolman and Stuart Ross]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com