The mother of all storms is upon us. We are taken
aback, our skirts blow up. We show our panties, bad girls
all of us, march off to school with our lunch boxes open.
Do you want my apple? Do you want my pear? See all
the fruit for the taking, piled high in a bowl, lacquered,
framed, left hanging from a wire, and screwed to the wall.
What business do people have walking down my path?
Someone walked up me and mine, took me out and laid
me on the sand. So this is love? Don’t make me laugh.
Do you want this apple, do you want this pear?
Please don’t teach your child to hate herself;
she will learn that on her own, everywhere.
There’s a narrow track between dunes and a mackerel
sky overhead. I ask you, what happens when you hold
your body in contempt, and love your neighbor as yourself?
Janet MacFadyen is the author of three books of poetry, including In the Provincelands (Slate Roof 2012), A Newfoundland Journal (Killick Press 2009), and In Defense of Stones (Heatherstone Press 1995). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Atlanta Review, The Malahat Review, Mead, Southern Poetry Review, Rosebud, Sweet, New England Watershed Magazine, and Osiris. Janet has been a fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and a recipient of a Cill Rialaig residency in southwest Ireland.