This Town This Life

In the early afternoon while they lie
in bed the furnace
turns on.
Somewhere in her house
a floor-board creaks.

          I love . . . when you touch me here, she says,

          I want to touch you there every night, he asserts.

Their fingers weave, unweave, and slide
away and away over skin and skin.

          We     could     move
          away. Another       town, another
life, he says.

          She b r e a t h e s.

The room is damp.
The air is calm.

He stares at the yellowed ceiling
as the furnace turns off.
She rises.

          Another town, a new life? he asks.

She pulls on her house-coat,
     feeds him a grape. He’ll be home soon, she says,
     you’ve got to leave.

~ A.G. Boss

A.G. (Allan) Boss lives in Calgary with the mountains in clear sight of his home were it not for the condo building blocking the way. His poem “Cutline” appeared in Writing the Land, he’s published numerous short stories, songs, plays and culture columns in all kinds of places, including bathroom walls. His stage plays The Chair, My Burning Bush, Curves in the Road, and Swimming with Goldfish have been produced in Edmonton and Calgary. His CBC Ideas program Updrafts won nominations for top international awards which include: Peabody Award, a New York Festivals Award, a Gabriel Award and a Prix Italia Award. He recently signed contracts with Playwrights Canada Press for two books on Mavor Moore due out in December 2010, but he hasn’t mailed them back yet.

“When thinking of home I think of poetry and writing, words, and story. When I think of those things I consider the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez who said, ‘fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.’ It seems all fictional writing begins at home, whatever that means.”

Filed under: Allan Boss, Home & Away by akublik Date 29 November, 2009

Leave a Reply