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CBC Literary Awards – First Prize (Poetry)

ONCE A MURDERER:
POEMS FOR THREE VOICES

Text: ZOË LANDALE

"As members of human society, perhaps the most difficult task we face daily is that of touching one another – whether the touch is physical, oral, emotional or imaginary. Contact is crisis. As the anthropologists say, ‘Every touch is a modified blow.’ The difficulty presented by any instance of contact is that of violating a fixed boundary, transgressing a closed category where one does not belong."

– Anne Carson
Men in the Off Hours

ONCE A MURDERER
Once a murderer held a door open for her
It was Supreme Court; they were returning		modified
after a break. She glanced at him,
a Vietnamese in black polyester,
said, Thank you, and rustled by,		not wanting to touch
chewing on acknowledging
the good manners of someone
who’d hacked a man to death.		The sound, a witness said, a knife
		going into watermelon
		physical, oral
The man she was there for
was guarding witnesses.

Every few months, she sees him
at court or over coffee
with eight of them crowded into a booth,		a closed category where
		one does not belong
listens to him swear and make jokes
that ought to be
totally unacceptable.
And yet, as she did with the murderer
who held the door,
she scoots on by. She laughs, accepts		he makes her free of the door marked
		"Authorized Personnel Only"
his crisp shirt,
his clean trimmed fingernails.

His wife’s picture
on his desk.		& doesn’t that bite each time?

Her own husband on a line
so frayed she threatens to cut it.
But they honor their snapped-tight tie
and tow it everywhere:
red, luminous, awkward as a hot air balloon.		they come encumbered

Now, on the street corner,
filthy snow against the curb,
the other man tells her about an arrest
he’s planning tonight,
a sexual predator.		anthropologists say,
		‘Every
His face lit-up, attention honed so fine		hawk, hurtling down
it’s almost delight,
though what he knows already
lacerates;
wait until after the interrogation.
The four-year-old with gonorrhea—		in early morning hours when he can’t
		sleep he tells himself, serve and protect

Wind from the western mountains
is a thin blade.
Behind his head,
the glacier holds its austere white witness
saying what it always says to the sky.		light & open arms

He hugs the woman goodbye.

If her daughter ever asked
what’s between them
she would tell her a door. A knife.		against the heart
		open

THE HUG
When she sees him unexpectedly
at the tire store,		where one does not
		belong
green coat and shiny tie
with cartoon characters on it
that no male in her family would wear,		her brother’s elegant silk
but she likes anyway because it’s his,
he raises his arm in a C’mere
and have a hug gesture.		she doesn’t even think
		transgressing
She slips into the half-circle of warmth
he makes and looks up.		welcomes his smell of soap, clean shirt
He smiles down.
Winter stretches until they stand at the edge		oral, emotional
of some larger place, sun-filled,
a ravine below them another step
would tumble
them
into.		she wants in

She basks
on the edge.		a fixed boundary
He carries the weight
of so many victims’ stories,
there’s darkness back of his eyes;
maybe that’s why she plummets into them		bleakness x warmth: his face lights
		the way newspaper
		catches flame from a match
forgets to notice
if they’re blue or green.

Their clinging amid the smell of rubber,
concrete and December cold is discomfiting.		embarrassing comfort
We should break away, she thinks,
but she’s always savored
nestling close to the chest
of a good-looking man		this man with dark marks
		under his eyes, thinning hair
and he seemed to be memorizing her face
like an Indentikit sketch he hoped he’d never need,
holding her like luck.
She is not over him as she believed
though she remembers her husband—		any instance of contact
his green coat almost the same colour
and soft feel—		smell of Christmas evergreen,
		bags of free popcorn
She is afraid her friend standing behind them
will chastise her later
when they and don’t and don’t
move apart		Every touch is a modified

EYE CONTACT
Blue. His eyes as she falls into them		imaginary. Contact
are the colour of Johnstone Strait
in a twenty knot westerly:
she wonders how she forgot.
So much between them is amnesia or confusion;
alone in her house		maroon floors shine
when she asks him to demonstrate
interrogation technique		devious
he brings his face inches from hers
and she doesn’t flinch
the way she’s supposed to,		the way a stranger would
he says quietly, We know one another now.
Kissing would be more like it,
only they’re playing it straight with spouses—
this is what he said right at the beginning—		using sincerity like a warrant to arrest
since they met a year ago
she’s been trying to give up fascination.		the most difficult task
Today is business. As usual.

The heart always wins, doesn’t it? he says		bastard
about someone else;
She looks down at her notes, says,
I don’t know.
The phrase, thin cloud along mountain ridges,
does little to block sun on the water
the way they look and look at one another,		like using scissors to cut the heart right
		out of you
eyes locked,		contact is that of violating
lives passing, dazzling as cruise ships
against the choppy sea.

Going north in Johnstone Strait,
a fishboat bucks a westerly for hours.
When he leaves with only a quick sideways hug,
she’s thankful. They’re making progress,		perhaps
motoring on by.

LIGHT ON MOVING WATER
Separated for weeks by a perilous
expanse of air,
they greet one another boisterous
as travellers at an arrivals lounge.		emotional or imaginary.
		Contact
Down below, the sea glistens, pewter
and malleable, scored
by the changing geometries of tugboats.		see how high they are?
Wakes open into triangles
fan out smooth again
much the way their lives intersect
and go on, empty
of all but the forgiveness of water.		& guilt, a stone that won’t warm
		the touch is physical
When they hug,
he says, You’re looking wonderful;
it’s a mantra.
Walking toward his office door
he presses her close,		the breast to chest thing again
she wonders how innocent
touch can ever be.		he talks about hoping she’d wear a
		raincoat to his office, nothing on
		underneath
		A joke?
On the steps, she moves upwind
from his cigarette;
they talk with others from work.
His face so close to hers, smiling,		violating a fixed
		boundary
his eyes, there’s a discontinuity—
she’s in the air looking down at
ocean, waiting		again
to stop falling beside him
metal handrail at her back.

Ambiguities swim silver between them		boil & glint
but this much she takes away,		shadow in the deeps
a fish: his affection is huge,		Every touch
a noun, and reflects.		light on moving water

TODAY SHE IS INVISIBLE
Today she is invisible.		perhaps the
		most difficult task we face
		daily
she doesn’t mind much;
it frees her.
She is starting to understand.		herself glazed in the mirror of his eyes,
		object
Before court, what attracts him
are Crown counsel, officers in suits
who cluster by the doors.
Men and women conspicuous
by radiant cleanliness;		emotional or imaginary
if they cannot keep creation
from splintering
into murderers and victims,		subject & object
they can at least shower
and get their hair cut often.		stars of their own shows

They smile at her, she’s the writer, familiar
and well-dressed.		stitches them into story, spotlights
Still, witness room doors close
in her face.
At breaks, a phalanx goes
downstairs and she’s invited to join
only sometimes.		police stand outside & smoke
		droop like hydrangeas, thirsty to be told
		they’ve done well on the stand;
		she waters them
On the stand,
he has bags under his eyes
she never sees face to face.
Something about losing
her way when they’re too close		it’s called violating your personal space:
		he’s showed her the technique
		in interrogation
though she should know by now.
		why does he do this?
There are enough jokes about him
and women.
He tells a story with clear plastic
evidence bags.		safe distance
The accused’s blood-spattered checked shirt.
Shoes that match footprints in blood
by the body.		Every touch is a modified
		Blow
Today, being invisible,
she sees for miles all along the valley;
stump ranches where people make
prayers of work, the forest
with its dark ripple of evergreens.
She understands the warmth between them
had gone beyond game;
his intense recognition
fierce and open as a red-winged hawk		dropping, the crisp sound of feathers
		against air
prey in sight.

Now he has sheered off.

She won’t offer more unguarded smiles.

He looks weary and elegant.
The hug she didn’t get today
reverberates
but she sees		perhaps
he wants only the surface flash
between male and female:		over lunch (nothing red)
		the blood-spatter expert from Halifax
		gossips about marital infidelity
		boundary, transgressing
give him a moment
when he wasn’t distracted
and he would embrace
by reflex.

She is a reflex with him.
A woman with bright lipstick
to tease,
a civilian conspicuous in his world,
the bleak four a.m. one where human blood
pools on floors		this is what his pager, going at four
		a.m. means: yellow intestinal fluid
		on the mattress & floor, red high as
		the ceiling
where he is a hunter.
She moved.
Of course he’d pounced.		crisis. As the
		anthropologists say

SLEEPING BEAUTY* BECOMES INDIGNANT AT JAVA JUNCTION
	*the unclaimed child
What she sees this time is him stroking
her hair, a gesture of such intimacy	a closed category
she couldn’t believe
he’d reach out and fondle her
in front of another officer,	where’s your discretion?
even if she was off-duty.
She and her friend had been talking
about how Jan was to be Watch Commander
and whose ass she’d chew, being Jan:	the Queen of Mean
nothing personal mind you,
	looks like she belongs on the back of a
	bike, another officer once said
then her friend mentioned his name
and said, Oh look	what are the odds?
and it was him wearing sunglasses
a different green jacket
than the one he wore all winter.
He was working	outside, the Queen of Mean waiting for
	caffeine; she elicits full confessions
	from rapists, pats them on the arm
and wouldn’t join them but
while he waited for coffee he drifted
over and stood beside their table
just long enough to caress her	bonding technique used in interrogation
as if his hands didn’t know
he was still talking
and she, she leaned into his touch
as if it were home.	The difficulty presented

STEELHEAD FISHING
	touch
Days now she has known
she must give up wanting him;
understanding arrived perfectly formed	is physical
while she was watching a friend
sing The Messiah.	gold light, cupping
It broke over her the inevitable
way a wave builds,	or an orgasm
green rush and roar
of water on polished gravel.
Now, across the table, he watches her	transgressing
as if he were a controlled burn eyeing
first growth timber.	she drops her gaze now
	no game
Across their coffee cups
she sees in frame after frame,
the changing angles of his arms mimic hers.	Touching
Her hand opens the way his does,
they mirror postures with shoulders: who started this?
They lean forward.			how much they want

With December rain, steelhead
fin up newly-risen rivers, tasting home.			desire like a rock
Water is the language of solids.			you could walk on
This too, lies between them,			we face daily
the way she eases around
extended eye contact.
Each winter, he curves a thread of brightness
into grey sky, casting for steelhead.
It’s one of those questions that has to be asked			task
over and over, the line drops
to the river’s deep tea-brown and floats down.			rainy days
Catch-and-release, the long silver solidity
of the fish gleaming, twisting in arcs, dull light
as he pulls one toward the bank.			perhaps the most, oral

Days now she has known
answers rise like bubbles to some vast horizontal plane
where oxygen changes form.			The difficulty presented
			by any instance of contact
Across the table, she warms herself
at his eyes’ transparent fire.			this she believes implicitly
How grizzled his eyebrows are,
white against black like quick lines of no, repeated.
This is what love means,			returning to where you can breathe

she thinks. We break the surface, inhale,
shake our heads in wonder.

Always before, she’s liked to bring fish home.
This business of cherish-and-release
leaves her gasping.			a closed category [ ]

------
ZOË LANDALE is the author of five books. She lives in Richmond, B.C., where she teaches creative writing at Kwantlen University College.

The views expressed by the writers do not represent the views of enRoute, Spafax or Air Canada. Certain readers may be offended by the contents.

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