Elizabeth Bachinsky

Elizabeth Bachinsky Poems

It was down that road he brought me, still
in the trunk of his car. I won't say it felt right,
but it did feel expected. The way you know
your blood can spring like a hydrant.
...

Elizabeth Bachinsky Biography

Elizabeth Bachinsky (born May 10, 1976) is a Canadian poet. She has published four collections since 2005: Curio, Home of Sudden Service, God of Missed Connections, and The Hottest Summer in Recorded History. Her second book, Home of Sudden Service, was nominated for a 2006 Governor General's Award for Poetry. Bachinsky's work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Canada, the U.S., France, Ireland, the U.K., China and Lebanon.)

The Best Poem Of Elizabeth Bachinsky

Wolf Lake

It was down that road he brought me, still
in the trunk of his car. I won't say it felt right,
but it did feel expected. The way you know
your blood can spring like a hydrant.
That September, the horseflies were murder
in the valley. I'd come home to visit the family,
get in a couple of weeks of free food, hooked up
with a guy I'd known when I was a kid and things
went bad. When he cut me, I remember
looking down, my blood surprising as paper
snakes leaping from a tin. He danced me
around his basement apartment, dumped me
on the chesterfield, sat down beside me, and lit
a smoke. He seemed a black bear in the gloam,
shoulders rounded under his clothes,
so I tried to remember everything I knew
about black bears: whistle while you walk… carry bells…
if you don't bother them, they won't bother you…
play dead. Everything slowed. I'll tell you a secret.
It's hard to kill a girl. You've got to cut her bad
and you've got to cut her right, and the boy had done neither,
Pain rose along the side of my body, like light.
I lay very still while he smoked beside me: this boy
I'd camped with every summer since we were twelve,
the lake so quiet you could hear the sound
of a heron skim the water at dusk, or the sound
of a boy's breathing. I came-to in the trunk of his car,
gravel kicking up against the frame, dust coming in
through the cracks. It was dark. I was thirsty.
I couldn't move my hands or legs,
The pain was still around. I think I was tied.
We drove that way for a long time before
the Chrysler finally slowed, then stopped. Sound
of gravel crunching under tires. I could smell the lake,
a place where, as kids, we'd come to swim
and know we'd never be seen. Logs grew
up from that lakebed. All those black bones
rising from black water. I remember,
we'd always smelled of lake water and of sex
by the end of the day, and there was a tape of Patsy
Cline we always liked to sing to on our way out —
which is what I thought we'd be doing that September
afternoon. That, or smoking up in his garage.

You know, you hear about the Body
all the time: They found the Body…
the Body was found… and then you are one.
Someone once told me the place had been
a valley, before the dam, before the town.
But that was a long time ago. When the engine stopped,
I heard the silver sound of keys in the lock
and then I was up on his shoulders, tasting blood.
I think he said my name. I think he walked
toward the woods.

Elizabeth Bachinsky Comments

Elizabeth Bachinsky Popularity

Elizabeth Bachinsky Popularity

Close
Error Success