Deborah Blenkhorn is a poet, essayist, storyteller and playwright living on Canada’s west coast. Her work fuses memoir and imagination, and has been featured in literary magazines and anthologies in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. More poetry from The Feedsack is here.
Sunday
She remembers Grey Cup Sunday, that first and only one they all shared, before life got in the way The feeling that this was something adults did, and here she was doing it The television blaring, the snacks set out on colourful plates Not knowing and honestly not caring ’bout the rules of the game And when they came back into the room, asking what happened, She said, “I think someone got a penalty for rushing!” Which became a joke for months ahead Why not go on for years this way? Two couples, all congenial Four lives forever intertwined? ’Twas not to be We rushed ahead to other times, to other loves Not even looking back till years had passed And then with only fragments of the past So long-distilled a vintage, bottled, casked Did we ever even fight? I don’t recall except the end And no one won, and no one lost, though all is lost Not even to retain the world as friend. I give myself a penalty for rushing Headlong to tomorrow’s bitter strife But sometimes I recall that Grey Cup Sunday A vanished moment in a vanished life.
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