APRIL 15: Heather Davis
HERE
A name tells people
where you are from,
maybe.
How people say my
name
tells me where they are from,
maybe.
Other people have my name.
In places, it’s as common as a weed.
But here, in Quebec
it confounds, confuses,
stops people, slows, intimidates.
This is why my friend’s wife
refused her husband’s suggestions
for their baby’s name,
said no to Heather,
and never to Gwyneth.
No “th”
But I stick my tongue out
and say it:
Heather
Even though I have never seen fields
of it growing in Scotland
My name away from home.
Heather Davis lives and writes in Sherbrooke. She teaches writing and children’s literature at the two local universities. She loves walking in the forest, singing Georgian songs, and seeing what her kid is up to at art school in Vancouver.