Some days I think I know things
'Often, truth sounds like a sigh,
release of knowing previously
held in the soles of the feet.
Visions come, uninvited guests
overstaying at a party. I am
barely welcome myself. If I
gasp and can then predict
your death, who wants to know?
Who would rather not go on
eating canapés, spilling last
year's wine, watching a rose
bloom on the white carpet
pretending it says nothing?
I am not stupid. What marks
a woman is silence, the quiet
hum of knowing behind
conversation, the soft wind
of history held prisoner inside.'
Rhonda Douglas (2008), Some days I think I know things: the Cassandra poems.
Winnipeg/Manitoba: Signature Editions, p. 45
