Photo: Joseph Walker

Ann Walker is a writer, journalist, and media producer, with twenty years experience in radio and print journalism, public broadcasting and public affairs. She specialized for three years in medical journalism, as staff writer for a national Canadian medical newspaper in Atlantic Canada. Her book Halifax—Canada's Smart City was published in 1999, and she has many articles published in Canadian magazines and periodicals.

Monday's Poem

© Ann Graham Walker

I Called Your Name

In a hospital room, light as breath
I left my body behind
My heart dropped its wreckage
But the living remembered me sad.

Our children searched
Diving for pearls in the ache of our history
I wanted to shout to them
"Breathe! Breathe!"
Fine words from the dead.

They found your yellowed telegram
In a drawer beside my bed—
you couldn't wait to see me—
And that picture of us, young, in Cuba
Sparkling in new bathing suits.

Later they stood up at my funeral
And called me beautiful.
Thank God it was my young face
They remembered.

You stayed home
With your new wife, in Texas
Hurling desperate roses in my wake.
Eighteen blood valentines
Paled by regret
A hand-written note.

I called your name
As I passed out the door
I ran out of air
I forgot you weren't there.