Eighth Frame

Untitled (603.4). Toronto, 2010. R. Kolewe (click to enlarge).

Poet Jacob McArthur Mooney responded to this image:

I was really inspired by a. rawling's use of the “calendar” image in her frame. I like the idea of latching onto the photo's “ulterior geography”. So I looked at these mailboxes for a while and tried to decide what they looked like. The image I came up with was a blister pack of eight pouches, with the last pouch popped open. So I had that. But I didn't want to ignore the actual content of the photo, either. The idea of apartmental (or compartmental) design, that whole smallness aesthetic, creeped in. The image of something large being shipped in a blister pack was striking to me, so I chose a car. The second line of the poem was the first one written. I decided to take this smallness idea and put it front and centre, and write a break-up poem for an action figure. I had been listening to France Gall pretty much on loop, so she made it into the poem both as the title and as the song in the third line.

Laisse Tomber les Filles

You are driving north through unmapped carpet.

The car you are driving was shipped in a blister pack.

A machine in the sky is intoning French pop songs.

This neighbourhood is flat, good for thinking.

 

You were born to be a rocketeer, but you blew out your leg.

You spent years in a basket with other broken men.

Now the woman you live with has no ears or eyes.

You can't fit through the door of her inherited home.

 

If you drive long enough, you will drive to outer space.

This is the ambition that powers your car. Your car

has no engine. Infants have suckled the hood.

The wind whirs on. You slip off the road and into sunlight.

 

Everything is angular and hot to the touch. A child's voice

taunts its foreign chorus. You never travelled or took up

another language. And no matter where you go, you can always

see your house. So you smoke. You exhale. You melt to your seat.