I. Look at This
By Ceridwen Hall
Because related species grow in extremely different shapes, my botanist sister requests a word for cacophony of the eyes. For the visible and unruly. Not potpourri, which belongs in a grandmother’s bathroom, or cornucopia with its sentimental whiff of autumn décor. Not kaleidoscopic. Not mélange. Definitely not pastiche. We’re trading words over the kids’ splashing and the grown-ups’ small talk; this is the best conversation we’ve had in years. Something precise enough to slide its way into a scientific journal, something wilder than medley. Words, too, are like species — with origins that can be traced back to common ancestors, patterns that rupture and surprise; bright streaks of music break from rustling pages and tapped keyboards, where texture is temperament. A cheer bursts from the crowd gathered around the flat-screen, screams from the kids as the dog steals a carrot. Floaties of every color scatter around the pool when I flip her son’s makeshift raft. More laughter. Towels hanging everywhere. Maybe she has the right word already; I mean, look at this cacophony.
II. Thruway
The memory is not a dream, though it begins stretched out napping in the backseat of the family car. The memory belongs to our father and is of his father and, therefore, impossible to verify. Dad is approximately nine. Grandpa is driving back from the Adirondacks. Another driver gets angry — maybe he’s weaving and honking, trying to speed — so Grandpa pulls over to let him pass. This wakes Dad and jars him from reverie into fact: there were no seatbelts, and the brand-new thruway distributed souvenirs. But the angry driver does not pass. He parks. He leaves his car and approaches Grandpa. We hold our cards suspended waiting to hear how Grandpa reacts. The old man we knew was a pragmatist, gruff, but sentimental about rabbits and squirrels; he was taciturn, though he liked a good joke, knock-knock or otherwise. The angry driver reaches for the door handle. We still don’t know why he’s angry and never will. Because Grandpa — who will only ever drive with slow caution in our memories, who will avoid left turns for years — Grandpa guns it. Like a bat out of hell or some other 1950’s idiom. (It explains a lot, this legacy of evaded confrontation.) By the time the angry driver gets back into his car, Grandpa’s taillights and Dad’s memory are swallowed by distance.
III. Rapids
You are rinsing dishes when the dog is swept away by the river. Swept again; the dog is long since dead, but your childhood didn’t end with a clear barrier, like a mountain range or river, separating past and present. No, the terrain of memory is unfenced or else the fence is one a ten-year-old can climb, a dog can jump, a parent can topple. And its currents are strong. So, the dog is swept downriver while you rinse and clear and grow angry at your parents for getting the years and names wrong. And the dog washes ashore and runs back as you serve ice-cream, dipping the scoop in hot water between flavors and watching flecks of color melt away. Always you feel very old and like a helpless child on your birthday, never your actual, ever-changing age. Perhaps this is why you’ve refused cake. Because the dog is in the river and your sister wants to sing, and you can only listen for what you know will happen next. This river, or another, curls your hair, carries you forward as words drag you back — until you become a stubborn little island of silence, unable to touch either shore of the conversation, while the dog is swept downriver and you fall from a cliff or a horse or a flipped boat or a pine tree or else cling to a snapped branch and suspect time is a mill, turning mid-mind. It keeps turning as spoons chime against bowls, and the water runs and runs.
Christina Peressini, The Skeena, 2025, paper, pins and archival adhesive, 11" x 30" x 1.5".
Ceridwen Hall is a poet and educator from Ohio. She is the author of Acoustic Shadows (Broadstone Books) and two chapbooks: Automotive (Finishing Line Press), and fields drawn from subtle arrows (Co-winner of the 2022 Midwest Chapbook Award). Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, Craft, Poet Lore, and other journals
Christina Peressini was born and raised in Powell River BC. She studied History in Art at University of Victoria and Communication Design at Langara College. She had her first solo exhibition in 2023 at The Cultch Gallery and her work has been shown at Federation Gallery, VanCity Credit Union, Silk Purse Arts Centre, and CityScape Community Art Space. She has been a member of CARFAC since 2024 and an exhibiting member of the Federation of Canadian Artists since 2022. She has been exhibiting in the Eastside Culture Crawl since 2022.