January 2024
Sean Meggeson
seanmeggesonrp@gmail.com
Bio Note: I work as a full time psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Toronto, Canada. Over the last 15 years, I’ve written, published and presented professional papers on such topics as Lacan, addiction, neurodiversity and my dog. I recently have had some poems published in Psychoanalytic Perspectives, In Parentheses, and will have a poem in the March, 2024 edition of SCAB magazine. I graduated from the University of Denver with a Masters in English Literature and Creative writing way back in the late 90s, which to me feels like last week.

Glenn Gould’s Office
The commercial offices at Inn on the Park had hallways with full-length windows —true to name—right on the park. The calm, low hills of Don Mills. As a kid, I ran through those hallways, back and forth from the pool to the room. Sliding-doors opened in the summer, the hallways smelled beautifully of pine. Glenn Gould’s office was somewhere there, and I imagine running into him then, yelling crazy to someone behind me, crashing into his legs, his heavy wool overcoat over wool pants in sweltering July. He would laugh big and throw me back into the pool, I’m sure. In my thirties, I walked the same halls back and forth from the bar to the pisser, 4, 5, 6 vodkas deep as night closed the park. I imagine literally crawling down the hall on hands and knees, and Glenn helping me up, putting his coat on my shoulders and talking to me slowly, humorously, so that I could open a sliding door and walk the hills of the park, relieve myself behind a longleaf pine tree, wash myself clean in the creek. Sleep it all off in his coat, dreaming above humid, freshly cut July grass.

Jag
Memory of this dad walking behind his 13-year-old kid in Kensington Market, who holds a new model car kit, who looks at it in smiling wonder, enjoying the the reality that it’s his, and life is good & fair. Dad reaches out and places his hand on his son’s shoulder and this kid, still looking at his kit, says, smiling with gratitude, “Thank you, Dad.” Dad’s face fills with honest, generous love. This happened almost 20 years ago and I remember it like something depends on it, like the password to my bank account, like my therapist’s kind voice, or his invoice. I also remember the kid being too old for the toy, too shy to have a better body, hair or skin. The market was full of garbage, and I haven’t been back since. The real Jaguar XK-E type is a beautiful two-seater nobody can realistically afford.
©2024 Sean Meggeson
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