I

Imprinted on the ridge of my lips
is your smile. Unfurling beneath
bright eyes like a chrysalis forming
about the flowers which gather bees
who bring their honey into the world.
A viscous gift that drips down my
throat, parched, and into the heart
of whatever surprises your life brings.
Sweet, like the smile you gave me
after a short embrace that became.

II

She never liked lamb –
the meat of innocence offended
her Catholic upbringing. Nana
measured love by the spoon that
became the vessel through which
such labour flowed into Empire
Biscuits, Birds’ Nests, and Shortbread.
When she met my grandfather, after
that forgotten war at the burnt edge
of the one before, she was training
to be a nun. His accent and wit
just about enough. He was part pirate,
part poet, who never chose to write
any verse with a pen, but his grin
lit up her mornings like the sun.

III

Mom met Dad at a monument to time.
That statue in Kingston – two obelisks
leaning into their own collapse, hoping
to come together in aluminum embrace.
It celebrated 300 years the scar of that town
lay astride the quiet curvature of a glacial gift.
Mom got just over a tenth of that eternity
with Dad. A few months after he slipped
into that receding tide of a young life’s pulse,
she returned, alone, and spread his crumbling form
at its base. Watching a facsimile of their first sunrise.
Where his hand tentatively first explored hers.

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Lawrence Blake is an emerging writer from Canada. A serving infantry officer, he has deployed both overseas and domestically – most recently to Iraq, Ukraine and into long term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of spaces.