New Works: Poems and essays

Bathers

Sisters in the bath,

turning into prunes,

playing.

Imagining scenarios,

Inventing futures and flights of fantasy

together.

Then a time of discomfort

the shock of one sister’s changing body

they accept separateness.

Unable to risk being close.

one in the shower,

filling up the bath for the other.

Then one day tempted

the old toys call to her

she stays in the bath once again.

Now more hours of their childhood,

will be spent in wet fun

building their relationship

trust.

Helen Spaxman January 25, 2010

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Worst Dinner Ever

My husband, Gord, built a wonderful bench around two sides of our dining table. It allows us to serve birthday cake to 10 kids around a table that would normally sit four adults on chairs. All the same, Gord curses the day he came up with the idea.

We have two daughters, Christa, the elder sits nicely; she is eleven years old. She eats almost anything we place in front of her and often more than I do myself. Louise, six years old, refuses to eat most things; she continues to grow and have energy for school and running, dancing, singing and so on, but seems to live on air. And we worry about her inability to sit at the table.

If you put a jigsaw puzzle, art materials or even lined paper and pencil on the table, Louise will sit and concentrate. Ask any of her teachers. But once there is food, especially dinner, that bench becomes a stage for dancing, singing, “poetry”, yoga, gymnastics and any kind of monkey business she can come up with. Louise rarely sits on this bench at dinner time, preferring to squat, presumably to be able to get up at a moments notice.

Six years ago, Christa got an enormous glass from a hockey game; she wasn’t allowed to use it because she knocked it over a number of times. Last year Gord started using it; he does drink a lot of water at dinner time. Soon after, Louise started switching it with hers when he wasn’t looking and it became joke with them. Daddy would act like he didn’t know how it got moved. Even though we are tired of this joke, we have allowed it to continue if only to keep a positive mood at the table rather than a fight over what Louise refuses to eat.

One recent dinner, I had prepared nutty short grain rice, chopped and steamed kale and carrots with Bragg’s, thin ham steaks, home-cooked black beans, sometimes Louise eats these. The week before she had enjoyed these beans on toast at lunch. And always on the lookout for proteins that she will like, I hoped she would be tempted by the pink ham.

“I’m not eating THAT!” Louise pushed the plate away getting rather animated on the bench.

“Behave!” Daddy pointed his finger at her.

“I am being have.”

Daddy looked back at Louise. “Hey, what happened to my water? It shrunk!”

“I don’t know?” smirking.

Sensing her improved mood, I suggested, “Have a seat, Louise.”

She pulled a cushion over to sit on but instead squatted over it. Then, leaning across the table, she plucked a cherry tomato out of the big salad bowl knocking over her gigantic glass of water, dousing her dinner.

This should have been a tragedy and in the past had resulted in tears and me trading my dinner for her rinsed one. But with a goofy grin, Louise said, “I like soup.”

She stirred the water into her food, carefully separating out the ham, and ate her “soup” all up. My daughter is a ham but won’t eat it.

Helen Spaxman

January 28, 2010