At Swim Three Words
by Gary Geddes
As my mother lay dying in a dark, cold room
where plumbing and ductwork were visible
overhead and cracks in cement walls sprouted
spider-webs and dust, I recalled the flume
that carried us pell-mell down, risible
in the extreme, at the Exhibition Grounds
in Vancouver, her mouth wide, kerchief
blown back, her body language quizzical,
as if laughter were verboten, out of bounds,
a thing unexpected, a joker outed
sans warning. When I stood by the bed,
my small hand clasped in hers, I had grounds
to wonder if she would die, though I doubted
this, of course, thinking only of myself,
my needs, days at the beach in English Bay
or Kitsilano, where I tossed sand, flouted
authority, sun-baked bodies, the air
reeking of seaweed, mustard, hot-dogs.
Some days I feel her speaking through me,
the few remaining strands of damp, brown hair
at sixes and sevens across her forehead,
lips pursed, facial muscles contracted
in a worry—ethics, clichés, beliefs,
each a clipped, forced whisper with its dread
finality. Resolute, I played the elf,
doing the dog-paddle across the frayed
linoleum, trying to make her laugh.
A tad of whimsy left on the back shelf
would suffice. She rallied briefly, half
alert, pulled herself into a sitting position,
the skin slack around her neck, eyes
closed from the effort. Grimace or laugh,
I know not, but she who swam kilometres
from Fisherman’s Cove to Point Atkinson
managed a thin smile, patted my head
and traced on my body the necessary letters.
Gary Geddes has won a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), the Lieutenant Governor’s award for Literary Excellence (in the Canadian province of British Columbia) and the Gabriela Mistral Prize from the government of Chile, awarded simultaneously to Vaclav Havel, Octavio Paz, Ernesto Cardenal, Rafael Alberti and Mario Benedetti.