Outside

A long time resident of Vancouver, Robert Gore moved to Los Angeles in September 2005; he is the Visual Arts Librarian at UCLA where he curates the artists' book collection for the Arts Library. His work has been published in Event, Canadian Literature, Arc, Grain, Contemporary Verse 2, PRISM international, and other magazines. Frog Hollow Press published his first chapbook, The Code Between Us, in 2002. He finds it strange to be called a resident alien and wonders what planet he has actually come from.

"Outside" was orginally published in Contemporary Verse 2.

Outside

My grandmother sends a letter
from the older country,

large spaces between the words
waiting for me to be born.

In the bedroom upstairs my mother
writes with a red pen in the book of birth.

Outside, the nights are cooler. By the light
of her notebook my sister

imagines her own imagination. She wants
to write everything down at once.

Days are getting shorter.
Leaves are pulling colour from the air.

The school bus stops in front of the house
and the driver calls out. My sister

runs down the steps
toward the open doors

thinking she will know me.