Next >> Joelene Heathcote Joelene Heathcote has an MFA from the University of British Columbia. Published internationally, she has received many awards for writing including ARC Magazine’s Poem of the Year; THIS Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt; and most recently, The Florida Review Editor’s Choice Award. Her book of poetry titled What’s Between Us Can’t Be Heard (Ekstasis Editions, 2002) was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award. She is at work on a new collection titled, The Alienation Effect. Contact: heathcote@shaw.ca Selected Poem: Synechdoche Summer, begin there On one of those important days in the twentieth century Remember to close your eyes. Morning is best because it holds the dream still slow as turtles on the beach, your comrades—some gone belly up. Look at the way they’re stripped of rations—stay low. All defenses leave a body picked clean of socks and food, weapon, and name. You have learned two rifles are better than one, grenades, whole or in pieces, are made of a steal so strong it must be carved from the flesh with a knife. You increase your chance of living if you listen with your cells, they know what the mind simply doesn’t remember: the safety of tree lines and mountains, the danger of open fields or water. Point your rifle in the dark and let it say what you can’t and have the same effect. Go for the head or the heart, a resistance separated by blond tripwire woven in a dry field your enemy or future children will snag their feet on. Nothing is more primitive than hate—a sort of shrapnel your eyes and face absorb. Do you see what’s happening? Watch the man wading in the chest-high grass. What is he looking for? A place to lay down, or something to eat, or you? And then, like a bird underground, or a brown fish from a buried stream, the thing you’ve planted rises, a silver spray from fin or wing bringing his body down. I want you to pay close attention because this is important. He is maybe three hundred feet away but each time you see this happen he’s closer, the wire going tight as a line of web and for a moment you imagine he’s dancing but you know not how these people dance. And though you most certainly want to cry, resist. Such sounds are weak and heard for miles; stay low. Wait until darkness to run another line, weightless as a sliver of moonlight dividing the grass and then touch your face again so you know for sure this time it wasn’t you. Back to the Poets Directory Home