Buoyancy Control Read online

behind your eyes. You are hugged by equipment.

  This is all the love anyone needs.

  Rescue

  A 46-year-old Port Moody woman was on life support in Vancouver General Hospital Sunday night after a scuba diving accident at Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver. Sgt. Paul Skelton said police got a call at noon Sunday, after a female diver failed to surface while on a dive with her partner at the popular scuba diving spot near Horseshoe Bay.

  —ScubaBoard, Aug 23, 2010

  You come to rest in a swell of Plumose.

  Lungs are a tricky business.

  Before this, you surfaced

  once, twice.

  thrash of boots and blur of hand

  fingertips outstretched albino starfish

  his gold wedding band glints in

  the sun

  The motor frantic overhead.

  Corkscrew through the sinus cavity.

  A jungle of nerves.

  the air between screams pounding

  echo of pulse shredded remains of

  jellyfish from a motorboat and after

  the gulls

  Your brain grows dumber. Sometimes shells

  are just shells; their spirals no longer

  an infinite. There’s no prophecy

  under this liquid ceiling.

  sunlight streams through water

  face a contorted panic feral growl

  ocean and spit-filled mouth

  A gas leak. Your five-year-old’s missing

  tooth, a gap in his smile. Your eight-year-old

  keeps three in the battery compartment

  of her digital camera. She rattles it to hear

  the clinking of battered and broken teeth.

  caviar pop of fluid mosquito bites

  chicken pox nipples dipped into

  hungry mouths bubbles float lazily

  from lips

  The Plumose gardens aren’t as beautiful

  as the last time. The visibility is bad.

  The cauliflower plants are grey and sickly.

  You stroke the spaghetti-shaped animal.

  This is not good diver etiquette.

  It will be fifteen minutes before they find your body.

  grief thumbs his eyes blind

  uncompromising the stilted measure

  of goodness blue sky and stillness

  mirrors that stretch and elongate the

  face her slippery hand through his

  the sun shines the gulls are lazy

  everything is the same

  Fluidity

  In the end there is only swallowing and inhalation.

  Two dichotomous acts that move things deep into us,

  debilitate or free us dependant on reflex and

  how steadily the heart pumps.

  Intertidal Zones

  “This filthy anemone, which exhibits both male and female characteristics, is turning our oceans’ intertidal zones into dens of sin and perversion,” said Rev. William Chester, spokesman for the Save Our Seas Coalition, a Huntsville-based activist group dedicated to ‘the preservation of aquatic decency and morality.’ “For God knows how long, this twisted sea creature has been running rampant in our oceans, spreading its unnatural, bisexual lifestyle. And it’s high time somebody took a stand.”

  —“Transgendered Sea Anemone

  Denounced As ‘Abomination’ By

  Clergy,” The Onion

  Reasons to Choose the Sea Anemone as Your Lover

  I am that filth, a twisted creature. I loved the anemone of her, that five-fingered pulsing dance. I pack, strapped and fully loaded. Float amiss in intertidal zones, search for the slag that could match mine. A predatory flower. Large polyps digest prey. I could use a bit of digesting myself. With fifty or five hundred fingers, I am my own lover. Get myself off, wet an ocean’s worth. Your shape indicates an attraction to kink. Egg and sperm eject through the mouth. Buds separate into two halves, a twinned life. Size is not a factor: four millimetres and eight thousand nerve endings can’t be wrong.

  and Reasons Not To

  How long have I hovered open-mouthed, weeping? For years I lived a half-life. Wait for the love of a good woman, then mope for the cock of a good man. How do we fold within ourselves and come out whole? Pick a side, for tits’ sake. Give me penetration; separate the conjoined sexes and bring them to their knees. Lecherous love be damned.

  Reasons to Choose the Leafy Sea Dragon as Your Lover

  Narrated by Jim Carrey, you were featured in a slow-motion 3D IMAX. Relative of the seahorse—same delicate trumpet nose, same philosophy of child rearing. Found in shallow pools, spindly figure hovers over brown kelp beds. Scales umbilical in texture. Titanium sheath. Mr. Nice Guy. Not like the Spanish Dancer, her large gelatinous figure used to her advantage. My love, you float up and down like a teeter-totter. Leaf-stalk fins plush as feathers stroke the side of my face. Not everything is meant to move in this way. The sea urchin suctions itself to the floor. The cucumber wraps its toothy meat around a soggy log. Hunting is patience. Panting, silence and heat.

  and Reasons Not To

  Not nearly as exciting as the Indonesian Mimic Octopus. Limited mobility. ‘Making love’ is boring.

  Reasons to Choose the Starfish as Your Lover

  The starfish is brought home in a Ziploc baggie, a purple bruise splayed stiff, withered from lack of moisture. The jellyfish dilutes overnight, but the starfish sits taut on the toilet frame for years. It does not yield. On the floor of Howe Sound they pile on top of each other, desperate for a feeding, a sheltered spot for regeneration. I read once that all stars are fires, but not all fires are stars. The burgundy hibiscus opens itself towards you with its five points. Hold it in your palm. All things take the same shape if you look closely. Some stars exist without oxygen or gravitational pull. Others inhale through submersion, their five or fifty legs rough tongues along the ocean floor.

  Reasons to Choose the Jellyfish as Your Lover

  Folds. Plasm. Discharge along my thigh. Black-lit. Backlit. Electricity trails in blooms. Consistency. Repetition. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

  and Reasons Not To

  …perhaps the jellyfish understands, in ways that we cannot, that everything must tend toward liquid.

  —BH

  Our last day of vacation and the sand is so hot we limp along its surface. I am full of salt grime reaching to my pubis, my chapped inner thighs. A wave dissolves my calf. A stiff bubble corkscrews along my leg abstract until the searing heat reaches my brain. It’s only a rope, you say, ripping its bulbous head from my limb. We have ways to dispose of what tends to liquid. We have the ocean, where all things gather, where all things dispel. How can we explain the jellyfish that washes up on shore, sticks to flesh but is not meant to hold on for a lifetime? We have no choice but to fling these boils back into the sea. Our clutch is too tight, our desire too great.

  Reasons to Choose the Glaucus as Your Lover

  Because it is known as the sea swallow blue angel blue glaucus blue dragon blue sea slug blue ocean slug and when you take away the blues and the seas and the ocean you are left with swallow angel glaucus dragon slug.

  and Reasons Not To

  You are the real live Pokémon. Pocket monster.

  Reasons to Choose the Seahorse as Your Lover

  You mate for life. Range in size from 0.6-14 inches long and, at best, hover without the ability to swim or defend yourself. With little chance of survival, you choose to celebrate life. A love-making ritual lasts nine hours. You shift like a mood ring, a language only your lover can translate. I could kiss your curved spine, crush your sun-kissed skeleton. Even in deformity—a curved tail as though you broke out of shell, fins stubby and useless—you make the most of life. Wooing with a nod of your head, a feminist at heart. Life’s too short to worry about what
we can or can’t do for another, for ourselves.

  Reasons to Choose the Lionfish as Your Lover

  How uncomplicated we are. Before we become common. Before we inseminate.

  and Reasons Not To

  Ocean pest. Roll over in bed. Swim in sheets that maul our limbs. Drop mucus-filled egg clusters. Mouth at my back. Terrible fish breath. I am fickle. Can’t stay faithful to save my life. Entangled legs. Weightless bodies. We laugh. Our spit pools, spools in coils. Bubbles split the surface.

  Reasons to Choose the Octopus as Your Lover

  Eight tentacles. A hundred tiny cups to suck. Morphs to camouflage (i.e., your favourite celebrity). Master of disguise (warning: a bit of a player). Savvy; smooth talker who keeps you guessing. Manoeuvres in tight places (has no internal or external skeleton). Only the blue-ringed octopus (his Harley, his soft leather jacket against your cheek) is deadly.

  and Reasons Not To

  There are dreams of others. Pressed chests together like tight barnacles, the shredded silence of wet open mouths. Gulp sweat and warm night air. Swim in a glittery smear of phosphorescent stars. There is always another imperfect fit; one who eats deep-fried Mars bars and says your thighs are chunky. Who has thirteen lava lamps and struggles to spell words like Christmas and Tucson. Who collects barf bags from airplanes. There is love everywhere, everywhere for the taking.

  notes and acknowledgments

  I am grateful to the literary magazine editors who published earlier versions of these poems. “Oyster” and “Rescue” were shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year contest (2008 and 2015). “Intertidal Zones” was published as a limited-edition chapbook with JackPine Press. “Flash Flood,” “Only He Knows the Story of His Precious and Particular Life,” “Prologue (II),” “Klaus Ricardo,” “Dickie Lake 1,” “The Summer I Capsized You,” and “Dickie Lake 2” were published as a limited-edition chapbook called Everything Water with Cactus Press. “Mimic” was published as a chapbook by Leaf Press and won the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award. “The Hanged Woman” was shortlisted for the 2008 CBC Literary Awards. My appreciation and gratitude goes to Lisa Johnson and the JackPine Collective, Jim Johnstone and Cactus Press, Ursula Vaira and Leaf Press, and the judges for Arc’s Poem of the Year contest in 2008 and 2015, the 2008 CBC Literary Awards, and the 2012 bpNichol Award for their acknowledgment and support of my work.

  Much gratitude goes to the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council, as well as ARC magazine and Descant magazine for generous financial assistance while I worked on this collection.

  A huge thank you to everyone at BookThug. To Kate Hargreaves for her stunning cover design. To Ruth Zuchter for her copy editing genius. Especially to Jay MillAr and Hazel Millar, two of the kindest and coolest people in the Canadian literary scene. It’s not often that a writer gets to publish with their dream publisher. I am honoured and thrilled.

  Jim Johnstone, Linda Besner, Calondra Mainhart, and Leah Horlick provided important editorial suggestions on many of these poems in their early drafts, as well as love, support, friendship, and food.

  Alex Leslie, this book and my sanity depended deeply on our phoem workshops and Q&A play dates. Thank you, sweet friend.

  Brecken Hancock, your beautiful and insightful edits were the mini cherries on top of the regular cherry on top of the sundae of awesome that is our friendship. Thank you.

  Special thanks to Rachel Rose, Brecken Hancock, and Jim Johnstone for your words.

  Thank you to Zachari Logan for generously lending some of your ‘Specimens’ to collaborate with the chapbook Intertidal Zones. Your work inspires my work. I am so lucky to know you.

  I could not write poems without my friends and family. You are my rocks.

  §

  The italicized lines in The Near-Death Experiences You Inevitably Hear While Learning How to Dive are taken from the PADI Open Water Diver Manual.

  The italicized lines in Prologue (II), Klaus Ricardo, and The Summer I Capsized You are taken from the conversation between Lidia Yuknavitch and Cheryl Strayed in Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #73: I’m Standing Right Next To You.

  The italicized line in Reasons to Choose the Starfish as Your Lover is taken from Adam Dickinson’s poem “Philosophy Is Going Uphill,” printed in Breathing Fire 2.

  §

  “Prologue (I)” is for Edith Gruber and Salvador Lozada, for your hospitality and for providing the home where this book was born. And for Lupita, Enrique, Chava and eventually, Klein Klaus. “The Hanged Woman” is for Klaus Gruber, for passing on your love of road trips. “The Planets Never Align For You” is for Allison Cammer. Your heart is the best measure. “Only He Knows the Story of His Precious and Particular Life” is for the precious Matthew J. Trafford. “Mimic” is for Dennis Hill. The way we mimic. “Oyster” is for Christian Gruber. And for New York. “Klaus Ricardo” is for Edith Gruber and Klaus Lozada, November 23, 2009. “Dickie Lake 1 & 2” are for Linda Besner and Matthew J. Trafford, for retreats past and future. “The Swimmer Vignettes” are for Margaret Gruber, for passing on your love of water. “The Near-Death Experiences You Inevitably Hear While Learning How to Dive” is for Michael Harris, without whom I wouldn’t have met my D. “Open Water” is for Anita McCartney, for those first dives together and the photo you took.

  Lastly,

  Q, my little seahorse. You were in this book from the beginning, I just didn’t know it. Since your birth I cannot help myself; every last poem is for you.

  T, my little octopus. You began and then arrived at the perfect time to celebrate this book with me. Welcome to the world, Sweetheart.

  D, my best man-friend, dive partner and all around love. Remember the seahorse? Xoxo.

  about the author

  Adrienne Gruber is the author of the poetry collection This is the Nightmare (2008; shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry) and three chapbooks: Intertidal Zones (2014), Mimic (2012; winner of a bpNichol Chapbook Award), and Everything Water (2011). Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Grain, Event, Arc Poetry Magazine, Poetry is Dead, and Plentitude. She has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in poetry, Descant’s Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Contest, and twice for Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest. Her poem “Gestational Trail” was awarded first prize in The Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest in 2015. Gruber lives in Vancouver with her partner Dennis and their two daughters.

  colophon

  Manufactured as the first edition of Buoyancy Control in the spring of 2016 by BookThug. Distributed in Canada by the Literary Press Group: www.lpg.ca. Distributed in the US by Small Press Distribution: www.spdbooks.org. Shop online at www.bookthug.ca.

  Cover design by Kate Hargreaves

  Text by Jay MillAr

  Copy edited by Ruth Zuchter