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Leo Brent Robillard
| About the Author | Selected Poetry Publications Anthologies Continuum Cranberry Tree Press 2004 ISBN 1-894668-17-0 One Poem Henry’s Creature Black Moss Press 2000 ISBN 0-88753-348-5 One Poem Following the Plough Black Moss Press 2000 ISBN 0-88753-338-8 Two Poems $10 Cash Value Cranberry Tree Press 2000 ISBN 0-9684218-7-3 Two Poems Journals Carleton Arts Review Winter 1996 One poem Winter 1997 Two poems CV2 Winter 2000 One poem The Fiddlehead Spring 2005 One poem freefall (USA) Fall/Winter 2003 Two poems GraffitiFish Spring 1996 One poem Grain Summer 2001 One poem The Grist Mill Volume 12, 2004 One poem The Harpweaver Volume 11, 2004 One poem Hook and Ladder Fall 1995 One poem Nashwaak Review Volume 6 & 7, 2000 Two poems Prairie Fire Summer 2000 Two poems Queen’s Quarterly Summer 1995 One poem Verandah (Australia) Volume 11, 1996 One poem Whetstone Fall/Winter 1999 Two poems Yield Spring 1996 One poem Fall 1996 One poem Winter 1997 One poem |
Excerpt from freefall The Island When they awakened in the morning or in the afternoon they had only to sit up in the life raft of their bed to see the island and sometimes, even at night, when the moon was full they could see the island’s darkened hull -- birch leaves shimmering in the light like the sails of a ghost ship in the water. But during the day it was always a hoary turtle, barnacle strewn -- a shaggy moss-back sunning on a shoal. In the summer, it was an easy swim and if they were willing to brave the brambles and the thickets (which they often were) the two would feast on raspberries blooming wild in the underbrush -- teeth and tongues stained the colour of blood welling in the wake of fresh cuts and scratches on their arms and legs and torsos. In the winter, they had only to walk across the ice-choked channel, but then the island was a different place. The berries replaced by icicles clattering in the wind. The two were always quiet then. In the beginning, the two would come to its shores together, but later, and more often, the girl would make the trip alone and the boy would watch her slip into the water like a seal or trudge off like an Eskimo wrapped in a down-filled parka. The girl stayed longer and longer. And the boy went less and less, until he did not go at all. The first time she went missing overnight the boy was frightened and he kept a silent vigil from the window, but soon he grew accustomed to the space in his bed and learned to live around it. And although sometimes she was gone for weeks on end, he knew she would return and he always left her room to slide in beneath the covers and fold into him where they could make love and sleep like two spoons in a kitchen drawer. The girl let her hair grow long and ceased to shave. She stopped wearing clothes altogether. There were no mirrors on the island and the boy did not seem to mind. The soles of her feet thickened with time and birds began to nest in her hair. The boy noticed the sweet scent of loam beneath her finger nails as they moved together wordless and desperate after the girl’s long absences. In the middle of winter he closed upon her pale blue limbs in the quiet of the house, but by morning he would awaken disoriented and alone, but for the island as constant as the Earth’s rotation. The girl’s visits became so brief and quick he began to think that she was a dream and so he welcomed sleep -- quit his job to sleep full time and watch the island for clues when his body forced him into wakefulness. He grew thin, surviving on the meagre offerings of his nieghbours, each time they showed up worried about the state of his lawn, shocked by the sight of his protruding ribs -- the cage that carried the beating of his heart. In the end, it was the small things that kept him going -- the residue of berry stained kisses and damp footprints in the hall. |