MY MOTHER'S HOUSE

Last spring I returned to my mother's house.

Like living in a Volkswagen van

each move had to be exact and slow and smooth.

My mother's house is a museum

of artifacts from Woolworth's and K-Mart,

every room crammed, everything in place.

My mother has two or three of everything,

just in case, because it was on sale,

because she found space not filled:

stacks of satin-bound blankets in cellophane,

more than the Glynmill Inn,

enough dish towels from Duz detergent

to wash all the dishes in all the restaurants

of Corner Brook, salt and pepper shakers

and pots pans mugs jars jugs cups cans tins

filling every cupboard corner crack cranny,

nothing ever used, just collected and stored

and protected like the treasure in Ali Baba's cave.

My mother's house is not a house

for dancing in, and yet I recall I once danced

in rubber boots. I was a Cossack from Siberia.

Every Wednesday night I wrestled

my brother in a match to the death

or the end of Skipper's patience.

My brother and I played pool in the kitchen

on a table with collapsible legs,

sometimes opening the fridge door to make a shot.

I was going to be the first Newfoundlander

to make the Canadian gymnastics team,

somersaults and handstands on the sofa cushions.

My brother and I shot ceramic animals

with darts from spring-loaded guns

like Hemingway hunting elephants in Africa.

But last spring in my mother's house

I was like a reformed bull who knows

how to behave in a china shop.

If I moved quickly I would upset

the balance. I learned to move little,

always slowly, but that is not how

I once lived in my mother's house:

perhaps I have grown bigger,