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Lorraine Lener Ciancio

Sutton, Quebec

We arrive in a snowstorm, the house blazing with light. Our friends hand us glasses of red wine, bring in the suitcases. We sleep in bunk beds. He's at the top, I'm at the bottom under wool blankets. Homer, the landlord, finds excuses to walk by the windows smiling, stuttering, seeking company, delivering gallon-sized wine bottles filled with clear spring water for drinking. Warns us not to swallow tap water which comes from the bog. Bog water makes my hair fluff and curl, my skin pleasently redolent of deep clean earth. By the second day we all smell of Canadian moors. At night we play cards, laugh, tell stories. During the day while they're skiing we curl into my narrow bed and make warm love, then go into town where everyone says bon jour Madame and the restaurants are overheated but the food is French and good. I begin to think I can live for awhile in this small house with its swamp water and ugly worn furniture in a town surrounded by white far off mountains. A little desk near the window where I can wave at Homer as he walks by.

in the far frozen north
I buy Franch notebooks
with orange covers
to write about spring