The Red Element

for Miranda Hill

In my aunt's high-rise kitchen,
a turkey cools under a dish towel,
and peas, having boiled over,
simmer on the red element.
I'm looking out at the red line, the fall.
"My God," she says. "You look like Rusty."
Hand on my hip, neck bent gently,
my dead mother, standing there, about to light up.

Reviews

"In her stunning new volume of poems, The Red Element, Catherine Graham distills the whirling ambiguities of memories into gorgeous, mysterious single images, making the short poem triumph again on the Canadian literary landscape. With the dense, new energy of The Red Element, where all the poems form a bravura lyrical sequence, Graham proves herself as one of Canada's premier younger poets."
— Molly Peacock