Unclaimed County
Your presence disassembles me,
unhinges muscle and joint,
an unstrung marionette who
among others remains whole—
but cannot sleep, a blistered wound
festering back and forth across the sheets.
Your broken gifts are tossed to me—
a rind of bread, a scrap of meat,
water sweetened to nectar, drops
of soup I lick from my fingers,
food the others refuse to eat.
I spy that delicate spot behind your ear
that slips down your nape
to an unclaimed country I cannot cross,
a forbidden no-man’s land
riddled with land mines and hills of rock,
where I hear the roar of water
flooding a place I didn’t know went dry.
I have no standard to measure you by.
I dictate in my mind conversations we may have.
I pace the floor for news of you.
I replay every word we’ve spoken,
the same granular movie that flickers back and forth
as I think of the things I should have said.
You lead me to such distraction
I forget to tie my shoes.
In 2009 I was nominated for the prestigious Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Anthology Prize as well a Pushcart Prize in 2010 and 2011. In 2004 my novella received Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. A short story was also a finalist in the same contest. A novel, The Glass Cocoon was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award the following year. My novella The Watchmaker was published in November 2011 by Vagabondage Press and is selling well in e-book format. My YA fantasy novel “The Daughters of Eldox: Book I: The Alicorn” has been released by Whiskey Creek Press to positive reviews and the sequel entitled “The Daughters of Eldox, Book II: The Other” was released in the spring of 2016. My historical novel entitled “The Spoon Asylum” was released by Thistledown Press in May 2018 and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Award. My science fiction novel entitled SEEDs of the Inside Straight was published in 2024 by Austin Macauley.
