Gusto, Summer 1979

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

Country Life

We read the advertisement
for the estate auction
north of Luskville
beside the Ottawa River;
drove up to a dingy farmhouse
the auctioneer already
rattling prices on
wardrobes and washstands
the crowd bidding eagerly
on old quilts and scatter rugs
as I wonder whose body
they warmed and whose step
they muffled on long
northern winter nights.

Rain begins to muck the grass
and everyone moves to a field
beside the broken-roofed barn
where two flat-bed wagons
hold the sum total of a
man's existence. Block planes
and draw knives, hoes and
shovels take the block.

Generations of Quebec
dirt-scratching. He'd cut ice
from the Ottawa, set traps,
hunted waterfowl. Decoys
and traps go quickly
quaint articles in demand.
Red-plaided Quebecois joyfully
raise bids on pick-axes and
shovels, themselves pick up
inflated tabs; neighbours
swelling the estate.

A handful of country folk
full in years and lean in pocket
bid slender for rusted wire
and nails; scraps with frail value
but high in practicality in marginal
farming. Before we turn to leave
we share a whispered confidence.
the man had been murdered.
That old myth re-surfacing
yet again, of sock-stuffed savings.

c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Gusto, Vol.2, No.1, August 1979