THE WHOLE
ELEPHANT
THE WHOLE
ELEPHANT
MARLENE COOKSHAW
BRICK BOOKS • COLDSTREAM
Some of these poems have appeared in Canadian Forum, Canadian Literature, Dandelion, Descant, Event, Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, The Mississippi Review, Prairie Fire, Prism internation, Quarry, The Raddle Moon, and Random Thought.
Cover: Gwen Curry, Porch Light
, oil stick on paper, 1989.
Published with the assistance of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
© Marlene Cookshaw 1989
Brick Books
www.brickbooks.ca
Box 20081
431 Boler Road
London, Ontario
N6K 4G6
Canada
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cookshaw, Marlene
The whole elephant
ISBN 0-919626-44-0
I. Title.
PS8555.064W48 1989 C811′.54 C89-090566-5
PR9199.3.C6W48 1989
CONTENTS
None Genuine
The Grassy Verge
Hydrangea Is the Word We Cannot Think Of
Green Plums
Cupboards
The Settlement
Miniota, Manitoba
Flying Home From the Prairies
Intricate Play
What the Air Has Washed Under
The Whole Elephant
None Genuine
43,000 Ducks
The Queen of Burnaby
Too Close to Crows
The 410 Walker Street Blaze
The Blind Leading
Ball/bearing
The Illustrated Box
Quarter Section
The Sudden Drop in Temperature
Roulette
You Are Lucky
Coloured Pins
In the Swim
Life in the Country
The Gardener
Pollen
Gregory Peck
The Dream of Two Children
Mofette
The Milky Way
Planted
That Singing Edge
Trestle
Sempre Amove
NONE GENUINE
Then it came into the mind of Aubrey Vair with startling clearness, while his ear was being kissed, and with his mouth full of muffin, that life is a singularly complex thing.
H.G. Wells
The Grassy Verge
All this happened as I have said, and
The next day was Friday.
When I've finished The T E Lawrence Poems
and the last spiral of sugared orange peel
from the paisley tin, M caresses me
till the sand drifts in the corners
of my eyes Where are you, he asks
I could tell him, In a ruined arena whose stone
curve is worn smooth by desire
for those not here He enters me
I'm thinking of ducks and I cannot stop
giggling His hand in my tangled hair
like a webbed foot in kelp
He says, Nothing humorous in orgasm
To stop laughing I recall the willow
that launches itself from the flagged path
over the gorge water Years before we met
I walked hot afternoons along the gorge,
the long braid a sun-warmed rope against
my spine In late afternoon the current
combs the willow's green tips
On the shore side its pendulous branches
have been sheared like Cleopatra's bangs
a foot clean of the grassy verge
Thank you, he says, for being willow
Outside the bedroom window the winter fruit trees
drip diamonds From the seed tray to
