Polyester Housecoat
by Elena Johnson
I descend the dusty staircase of an old wooden house, step out the back door. Uncle Paul, who in waking life died 18 years ago, sits on the stoop. I’m delighted to see him, and ask if he’s hungry. In the kitchen, church ladies with practical hair are packing up leftovers. I unwrap some dishes and make him a plate: two types of home-made pizza, roast vegetables cut large. This irks the women—I’ve undone their careful cellophane. Uncle Paul shambles into the kitchen, looking somewhat impoverished, as always. Ragged beard. Button-down shirt with nicotine stains, hole in one pocket. He smiles; the room’s mood brightens. It was Uncle Paul who advised me: Always sleep with your head pointing north. Eat blueberries before bed, you’ll have beautiful dreams. I struggle to remove the housecoat I’ve put on over my clothes. Stiff mint-green polyester. Its sleeves don’t end.
Elena Johnson is the author of Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra (Gaspereau, 2015), a collection of poems written at a remote ecology research station in the Yukon. She lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, on unceded Coast Salish territory. She has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards and the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, and she was a co-editor of Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House, 2020). The French translation of her book, Notes de terrain pour la toundra alpine (tr. Luba Markovskaia), was published by Jardin de givre in 2021.