that's not the ending
last night i heard a poet read. afterward i walked to the makeshift stage. your endings, i said. you nailed it! i told him i was working on my endings. some landed, most circled or were rerouted.
i am working on a poem titled i could not save her.
there is a stanza about backs & another, how my eldest daughter's brain adores travel. when i was ten my family flew on the canadair north star to the balmoral club. i remember air pockets, turkey with stuffing & cranberry sauce& oxygen masks. my first jet ride, how on a vertical it zoomed up. my daughter's brain travels.
she sets off without insurance. my last flight was in 2007, to montreal for my mother's funeral. but this is about my eldest daughter. there were times i caught her & times i fumbled. i was late or infatuated. i lacked finesse.
sometimes i took breathers deadlifting at the gym.
when my daughter says good
morning i can’t recognize her. when i look in the mirror these days, i keep my
eyes level. but that’s not what this is all about.
tuesday morning at the creek with dogs
on the narrow path hangs
a thick construction
rope from one tree to another / especially for someone
balancing
a balanced dog knows when
a dog is not / & responds with
corrections ducks!
the
dogs look | on this bank
a
dog's head darts
underwater to retrieve
a flat stone another sorts through sticks
when
emily turns her head i say
did you see the ducks around
the bend
there
are little ones / the males are more colorful
ostentatious
bowie stays behind
here you are taking the fast swimming
route
back
when
emily crosses the ledge i say thank you
emily is my eldest daughter's
service dog
in training
ed the australian shepherd shakes himself off & river mimics
sometimes my lack
of balance | the hills & ledges i
grab onto a harness or a collar
& they bring me through
lately this is how i write my
poems | once upon my time, my poems
were driven by men
a
lacking husband
houses
lost & houses seized | an old beau inquired
how do you lose a house? a house,
he said,
is
too big to misplace | in my old young days
i wrote through
the
pores of men
a
bathroom or closet, the blue guest
room,
a long
rectangular balcony
in the isuzu jeep or the chrysler van
el guerillo we called the van. we were given to
naming
our vehicles in those days | the
streets
had their own stories. side streets uncles
or cousins
aunts
& distant relatives
of main roads | bowie watches a narrow waterfall
& i say are you watching the waterfall | since
dogs
appreciate
articulation
between two boulder rocks a
loud waterfall river
these days | forest & creek & dogs
all
real time
on the ledge i dictate the dogs
do not edit. nor request linear. but
here is a tangled ledge
how do
i maneuver
i will have to use two hands
mayhem my ass
organized mayhem! he said
i was raised to be polite
my life has not been well planned
there were too many
extenuating variables
i am known for revision
in my mayhem life i refocus
it
happened / i blur
the background & bring the present into foreground | later becoming
background then again
packing & moving, treasures lost & never recovered
i know | how to pack up mayhem & chaos in our lives
19 houses. some planned
many not i can’t say i loved them all
my daughters | words & paintings
i am like a cat lady with
my paintings lately these past
five years i have fallen
in love with poetry, workshops & writing | my paints
in our little green room with no heating. i worry
about my paint beauties. are they cold |freezing are
they old & worn? am i?
i have been hiking with dogs for 15 years & often
8 in our pack sometimes though seldom
only 4 my daughter told me get an iwatch
if
you should fall when
you’re
on the trail the watch would say
you have fallen are you ok one
winter i fell
on the ice because eight eager dogs
pulled me with ice & the
steep decline | i fell flat
i hit my head
my watch remained silent but one
morning when i bent down to pat
my eldest daughter’s service dog in training my watch said
it looks like you’ve taken a big fall
i
hike with dogs
on
cliffs & tight spaces. my brain sniffs the wind
like
dogs on a trail | but you know
it’s
all connected anyhow. everything.
Janice Colman is a neurodivergent Toronto poet and interdisciplinary writer. Her chapbook playing cello for a dead bird was published by Turret House Press (2025). Her work has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, filling Station, FreeFall, The /tƐmz/ Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and support from the Toronto Arts Council.
Janice is the mother of two powerful daughters and a service dog named Emily. Her current poetry follows the movement of attention on her daily creek hikes with her pack of eight dogs.
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