Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Emergency Contact” by Rebecca Wood.

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Emergency Contact

By Rebecca Wood

Is it helpful or harmful

that when you tell me you’ve seen a ghost

my first thought is haunting

not hallucinations

I wonder if you had a sister who automatically rejected

this ghost notion

who didn’t speak of salt and simmer pots

or kindly and clearly telling spirit to leave

Who looked you in the eye

and anchored you to this earthly plane

I wonder if that sister would make the spinning stop

Cut off the growing details you notice that reinforce the danger

filter for the threat

of the malicious convincing

intention of this attachment

Passed from person in crisis to person in crisis

I try to root us both in reality

To name the symptoms I am seeing

To activate the action of early warning signs

To make clear your discomfort and distress is not a failing

Is not forever

Sometimes brains roll like boulders

tipped by transitions

by trauma

and the neural pathways littered with pain

Pull towards panic and paranoia

And I hear you say the option

is hospital or bridge

And I hear you that both are full of fear

Both will feed the ghost

And I remind you that one is more permanent than the other

More final

I remind you that your mind

soaked with symptoms

is still your own

The details are disorienting

And I wonder if you had a sister who didn’t listen closely

Who didn’t try to make sense of which sticky warnings

and unwrapping worries

were real

Who would get texts that start with “I know this sounds crazy but…”

And answer simply “yes.”

If maybe that sister would stem the tides of psychosis

and if that would be better than riding the waves with you

Would that sister have the power to watch the water rising

the bucket filling

and sort which water

comes from rain drops, which from tears or shower or kitchen sink

Could she organize and separate and makes sense and clarify

And would that heal

I can hold the bucket

I can tell you the ways in which it is filling

I can tell you I don’t want it to spill over

I can try to keep my feet planted in reality

As the weight of the water increases

But sometimes I get confused following the path of the conversation

and then I lose track of why my clothes are suddenly soaked

I refocus and I listen and I use my voice to help

put words to the symptoms behind

“I know this sounds crazy but…”

Ghosts are convincing

And I wear my black tourmaline for protection

when I come help clean your apartment

And when I get home a light bulb suddenly falls out of a fixture

And I worry if in my effort to bring you back

To empty the bucket

I have absorbed your ghost

And brought it home with me

I wring out the sponge of my self

Put Salt in the corners

Garlic by the door

Bury Black tourmaline in the garden

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Copyright © Rebecca Wood

Rebecca Wood lives with her plants and craft supplies in Toronto, Canada. She delights in writing as a playful exploration of being human and what it means to exist in a body with multiple chronic illnesses and episodic disability. Her work can be found in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, Corporeal, The Blood Project and Pinhole Poetry. This poem, Emergency Contact, received an honourable mention in the League of Canadian Poet’s Summer Lovin’ contest.

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