ZEBRA MUSSELS

I.M.Ray Carver and my sister

I read a lot of poetry and books on
poetic criticism but I always go
Back to the master - as if he could
Write in a supermarket and make it
Poetic, hes one of the only writers
who writes my tongue.

I know in the poetry world im trailer
park trash. I sit here by the Black-
water our spot by the river in a wheel-
chair watching water come together
with other water.

It's September and the autumn leaves
are falling beside the discarded Buck-
fast bottles and a sign that says:
Zebra mussels, where am I, I ask myself?

I was twelve when I fell paraletic
Outside my aunts back door and was carried
home unconsious, Ive been around drink
all my life.

When I was 45 I blacked out
and woke paralyzed in a hospital
bed unable to walk or talk sucking
oxygen. My sister died from alcoholism
and my brothers a reformed alco.

I don’t want to be a nice poet I want
to be a real poet,I dont know if i was
an alco but i was well on the way.
I drive around with music now
If I closed my eyes id be lost at Washing bay.

I nudge myself awake and have lunch
at a motorway café, fingering the grain
I capture silence. 'any minute now
something will happen’.