Remembrance

Before I left Toronto for Victoria
we ate oysters at your place,
bought in Chinatown, unshucked and alive;
Eryn couldn't eat them, only cast their shells in bronze.

We always ate well together,
but that night, oysters and shells,
opening them together, eating live flesh:
we were starfish on an ocean bed.

I opened the last oyster, the shell with heat,
the flesh with my teeth. You were there.
I bit into the flesh and found a pearl,
a real one. I still keep it in a tin.

I rub it on my teeth from time to time,
hold it at an angle in the light to
see its rainbow.

We left Toronto for Muskoka once,
went to Eryn's cottage on the river.
The moon was full, pines and earth fresh full of snow;
you and I drank liquor and tea until paint dried.

We were always busy until paint dried,
but that night snow and tea were underfoot,
opening us together, spirits in flesh,
stars made invisible by the full moon.

I held the perfect icicle in the heat of my hand,
a wand, plucked from a blasted rock by Eryn;
you were there, we bit into the flesh of the night.
I still have the taste in my mouth.

I wear it on my face from time to time,
hold it in my heart at an angle to
see its rainbow.