Channelling Marilyn

Nudging midnight, 

September 8, 1954,

Labour Day Weekend,

eight days short of my fourth birthday,

I longed to make flesh

the CBLT-TV-whispered name of a mermaid,

Marilyn Bell,

ringing the drydock walls of my sleeping nursery.

Hostage of crib and bib and sib,

under cover of hot sheets

over and over I dreamt

through the flickering night

echoes of her twin,

dreamboat Monroe,

even as my scattered tinker toys

plotted a palace coup.

Tucking dark hair

under white rubber cap,

attaching noseclips,

greasing sleek body

of sixteen years,

a dozen beyond me,

the picture of youth swan dived off

the moonlit pier of Youngstown, New York,

headfirst into the deep thrill of Lac OntariOOOOOOO,

blowing me a kiss

in her foaming wake.

Chasing a 10-grand worm

dangled as bait,

stroke by stroke

the keen Toronto teen of pluck and grit

faced down

American marathon swimming champeen

Florence Chadwick, 35,

old enough to be her unwed mother.

No shit.

When Flo quit,

victim of cramp and vomit,

Marilyn knew

all too well

when you’re going through hell,

you keep going.

Hindered she was

by four strong winds,

five foot swells,

swarming eels attached to her heels,

Lampreys Unto Her Feet,

electric enough to enlighten

the snoring city of Rochester.

“Oh, Rochester!”

“Yes, Mr. Benny?”

Fed pablum and juice

like a pampered papoose,

white-capped Bell hit the wall

every third hour.

Torture. Agony.

Labour Day re-birth pangs

even as

Gus Ryder By My Side

coached warmly from a boat,

and through his stream of consciousness

rowed the thought:

The least they can do is name

Sunnyside Pool

after me.

Bulletins of Bell burped and rang

from the radio grill.

By midday, a flotilla of voyeurs surrounded

la jeune voyageuse,

stroke by stroke,

haloed by the lights of Sunnyside Amusement Park,

it, too, on its last legs,

due for demolition

this year of ’54.

Round breakfast time,

near the chi-chi, so-so Boulevard Club,

miming the Yankee invaders of 1813,

the first featherless biped ever to traverse

this particular path of water

sans ship

staggered ashore

less than ship-shapely,

but it could have been worse.

32 miles, 21 hours.

Do the math.

An aroused crowd of a quarter-mill,

half the damn pop.,

as white as her frozen flesh

pimpled with Canada goose bumps,

lay in wait in the grandstand of the Ex

to deliver,

like a pelvic-squirming newborn,

a Standing O.

Next stop: Ed Sullivan.

“And now, for all you youngsters out there!”

Weeks later,

Hurricane Hazel

shot through town

like a serial killer,

blowing Marilyn westward,

strait for Juan de Fuca,

where one more time,

passport-free,

she out-foxed the fucking Canada-USA

border police.

“SWIMS” looks the same

upside down.

When crowned the youngest ever being

to conquer the (pre-Chunnel) English Channel,

she retired at 18,

something we should all shoot for.

No one cared when she was eclipsed

by more than a nose

by genetic freak Vicky Keith

-- all five great lakes, no less!

Maybe lil’ ole Lac OntariOOOOO

was not-so-great

after all.

Hey girls!

Who’s up

for crawling all the way to Australia?

Who’s my baby?

                           ###

1954 proved a signal year for

Young Me.

On March 30, MBMS (Months Before Marilyn Swam),

my mother the buttoned-down tour guide

formally escorted me to the opening of the Yonge subway line,

Union up to Eglinton,

10 full stops,

runny nose pressed to the pane of the lead car,

elbowing two year bro

out of my Better Way.

Each night

before bed,

I was seduced by the spanking new

electric dream machine,

the black and white, two-channel boob tube

sprouting a set of bunny ears and wooden cabinet doors

tucked in the alcove of our haunted Balmoral Avenue home

built by my dry-as-death

grampa-doc.

In the cave of sleep,

I backstroked south

on waves of quantum air,

funnelling through the Union Station tunnel,

crashing the wall,

channelling under the lake to Youngstown

and back,

going to town on Marilyn,

what fun.

A flitting spot of white,

Tinker Bell cast her spell,

making light of hell.

A sister of Marilyn? Mmmmm…

A crunching gravel voice:

Norman DePoe, CBC News, Toronto.

Weatherman Percy Saltzman cooly flipped his chalk;

only he knew which way the wind blew.

From Buffalo, the Indian head test pattern

made me think of Tonto and Captain Kangaroo,

whoo-hoo,

look what I can do,

tinkle and grunt,

number one and number two.

On my other tall grandfather, Tab,

a grumpy Scot

who made my mother,

I kept regular tabs,

row-row-rowing his boat for the Toronto Argonauts,

past Palais Royale, Sunnyside Pavilion, the X,

my thoughts blocked

by the concrete trench of the Queen Elizabeth

I’m-Used-To-Having-My-Way,

lining the thin, unconscious lip of the city.

As I turned five

on September 16, 1955,

electrically alive,

our Brown School kindergarten class

perched on the planks of the peanut gallery

in the CBC studio on Yonge,

saying Howdy to Doody,

shrieking as one

when sprayed with seltzer

by Clarabelle the Clown

of red, down-turned frown.

Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

After the show,

I shook the soft mitts of pig-tailed Maggie Muggins and

my dinky doppleganger

FitzGerald Fieldmouse,

we thumb-sucking Aboriginals

singing our city into existence.

Jumbo shrimp Sunday lunches at the Seaway Motel

on the Lakeshore

made me feel

way big

and Gulliverian small.

Somehow I knew

over an April weekend in 1947

my other-worldly pa and ma

honeymooned across the water

in Niagara’s Sheraton Brock Hotel,

falling short of heaven.

Where are they now,

my sun and my moon,

where my lifeguard,

where my Maid of the Mist?

Where was my wet nurse

to lift the curse?

I cannot remember

ever being kissed.

In the flood of 2017,

the break-water where Marilyn landed

slid under the waterline.

The Toronto Islands,

the CN Tower,

my childhood memories,

my record collection,

my Youngstown

all sinking

with seductive slowness

under the sands of time.

Behold, Planet of the Racoons.

Marilyn Bell, you cast a spell

more potent than

Marianne, Mother Russia, Shiva,

or the Queen

on the money,

your hourglass figure

forever figuring in the beach of my dreams.

Enough with self-effacing Canucks,

you said,

you the Yankee-beater,

you the traitor who moved to New Jersey,

emblem of the Canuck brain-and-brawn drain,

you who made four kids and taught school

sans fish.

I cried, I died, I lied to myself

as you crawled away,

taking a wee piece of me

with you,

singing your black swan song:

“I did it for Canada.”

And so in a sleep-seeded poem,

I erect a statue of a sweet 16 year old mythic mermaid

in bathing suit and cap

fused in my toddler mind

with the Marilyn of Niagara,

breast-stroking her way across the carpet of buried tears,

pulling me

from the drydock walls of my sleeping nursery.

Today I am eight days short of my 70th birthday

and Marilyn, you are 83.

Am I catching up?

Are you free?

September 8, 2020