Half a Night

We took
three trains
in the
seven-oh-clock
midnight
of Montreal
in February,
just to see
the gap,
the stretching
of icy metal
over icier
water,
and all the
while you
smiled and
talk of the
great bridges
of the world,
the ones that
you would
see one day,
ones that
brought countries
together, ones
that made
you feel
light and
vertical,
ones that made
the walk
to get groceries
easier,
and when
we finally
arrived we
heard the dry
crack of ice
shifting,
the silence of
cold streets.

There we stood,
in the dark,
shivering, waiting
for the bridge
to reveal some
secret, some
knowledge of
the years spent
holding the
two halves
together, but it just
stood there,
as dark
as the night,
unflinching,
holding the gap.

Crown

We shed our city
skin that afternoon
as we tossed rock
after rock
into the murmuring
stream until
there was nothing
but the shallow crack
as the rocks piled up,
and we stretched
our tired fingers
over hard, dirty
surfaces just
to try to
stop the flow.

And we sat
exhausted on
the bank,
red handed
and blank,
dreaming of
wreaths of smoke
curling over
the tops of pines
and lofty, secluded
cliffs locking us
into this ecstasy.

And we fought
the urge that
told us that we
should get the
camera, that told
us to do something
to remember this,
that Wordsworth-light
dread of gleaming
images of ourselves
in apartment complexes,
remembering
the pure times.

And as
night painted
over afternoon
our eyes
saw again, revealing
Joyce’s tragedy
in our dreamy
longing for warmth.

I am a buoy

At your funeral
I stand in
the back, by
the marble cheese
and sweet pickles,
hoping that you’ll
know I’ve paid
my respects, that
you’ll see me
through the haze
of slow moving
people, and you
understand why
I can’t stand by
your coffin,
floating out
there amongst
your family
and friends
and those that
really knew you,
or at least I
hope you understand,
because I can’t
come closer,
even though your
coffin juts out
like a pier,
tries to reach
me through the
misty crowds
that talk of the
weather and
your old smile,
and I know
I am just a
buoy out there
in the sea
and you
are the dock
I cannot reach.

Island

Chubby aboriginal men, acne scarred, wearing tanned and beaded leather garments, beat a drum, while around them dancers dance, shaking their jingled feet, their belled leather, their chokers with turquoise beads, on the lumpy pounded dirt. Around them the native men and women wear Reeboks and have their pagers set to vibrate and carry braided leather lighter holsters and their Status cards. The white folks ask the wrinkled man with the headdress and smile if they can take a picture with him, and he nods, draping his arm around the little one and showing his teeth for the flash. The little Ojibway children run through the dirt with Pogs in their fists and, when they forget about that, they pretend as Ninja Turtles as they pull themselves up hills, and along the chain link fence that surrounds the complex.

A man in a booth offers to embroider my name into a tobacco pouch that he has made, and I swear that he was here just a week ago when the same grounds were occupied by the fair. All the while I can hear the four-oh-one overpass rumble in the distance and can smell cigarettes that the elders blow in the four directions as a prayer to the Great Spirit. There’s even the smell of candy floss underneath all that leather, and maybe a hint of cedar. But, I’m probably imagining the candy floss because I can always see the chain link fence that tells me this is where the fair grounds stop, this is where the roads and businesses begin, this is the edge of the Pow Wow.

Sault Ste. Marie

I felt warm
and sick
under the
sunny-wet sky that
late September afternoon
as I chimed
through the
gift-shop door.

walls: snow globes, flags,
things you tell yourself
you need
now,
but end up
in a Value Village
scratched and unused
in a year

floors: patterned carpets, red and
purple, mud scarred,
worn down
to gray
fibre
by the
till

counter: a dis-
play box
with little native carvings,
clearly labelled nine-ninety-nine
with tiny tags that explain
the “history” of the
small village and the
little Indians who inhabited
the bare land
bur were keen to trade tradition for
brandy, whisky and tobacco

customers: wandering
aislebound
looking at price tags
moving on
picking their teeth
whenever
they see
their reflection

me: perplexed, blood dried
asking myself
Is this all I am
A little synopsis
A paraphrase
on recycled paper?

This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about

Rain splattered the windsheild as he drove down the highway, maybe going ninety. He was fat, thick fingered, blue eyed. But he was fat in a way where you couldn't tell, just by glancing at him, where his chin ended and his neck began. He was the kind of guy who ordered desert first at restaurants, and then complained about portion sizes.

Before we got in his truck, which smelled new and clean, he had offered me a beer. I accepted; we hit the road.

I had left my girlfriend behind in the farmhouse, because I thought she should have some time alone with her mother. I had hoped, secretly, when I told her that I was going to tag along with her step-dad, that she would tell me to stay, tell me that she needed me to do something else. She didn't say anything.

The road didn't wind, to my dissapointment, just a straight line to nowhere. When he started to talk about tractors and getting his barley in once the rain had dried, I started drinking faster. He asked me a question. About what? I don't know. He waited silently, and, when I didn't answer, he asked again.

He had this funny way of looking at meout of the corner of his eye, like he was trying to figure me out, trying to look like he wasn't already dissapointed by me.

"So, what are you going to do with your degree?" He asked. He asked me this question about every four minutes.

I always told him. He never seemed to understand. He furrowed his brow, rubbed his chin, did everything but say, "that's fucking stupid." It was like he was incapable of asking another question, of being interested in anything other than what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to tell that just because he is a farmer, doesn't mean everyone else has to be, too.

"Why are you taking English?" That was another question he always asked me. But, it was usually paired with, "was it because it's easy?"

"Yes," I told him. "I took English because it was the easiet thing I could think of."

He stared at me, perplexed. Probably wondering how his genius questions uncovered the real truth of the matter.

The ride took forever. I remembered my girlfriend asking me to be nice, to go with the flow. She was probably not even thinking of me, just bieng attentive as her mom taught her to knit.

I don't remember how we got there, but it took about a thousand years. We had driven out of the rain. It was just humid now, overcast.

He had driven us to a ghost town. There were houses, gas stations, a Mcdonalds, but not a single car or person out except for us. We were standing in a lot that contained a repoed tractor.

"Here it is," he said. "This is it." All I could see was the tractor. I had no idea what he was talking about.

He walked behind it, kicked the wheels with his boot, checked the hoses to see if they would pop off. I crossed my arms, and saw a bottle of Corona resting on the steps leading up to the cab. I wondered if he would drive us by a liquor store.

"Do you know what this is?" He said, smiling, pointing at something.

"No," I said.

He started explaining seeding, how the pressure rockets the fertilizer and seeds into the earth. He pointed at more things, and shuffled over to them, stroking them or holding them delicatley in his hands.

I must have lost track, allowed his voice to be swept away by the wind, because all I remember saying was something about how I'll have to learn how to use it some day.

It started to rain and we got back into the truck. We stared at the air seeder in silence.

He said, "so, did you learn anything?"

I told him that it was all white noise to me.

Home

They were in front of the Chinese Barbeque House, pushed up against the brick exterior, onto the hood of a black and white, the dogs sniffing at their crotches and shoes. I was on my way home when I noticed this. I was just sitting there, on the bus, listening to the Besnard Lakes on my iPod, trying to think of ways to put off studying for my sociology midterm, writing had crossed my mind, drugs too.

The truth is that I see this all the time. Or, at least, some variation of it. There’s always that hooded figure being forced into the back seat of a cop car, lights flashing, siren off. They don’t even draw attention to themselves anymore. The other day, I was propositioned by a hooker. She asked me, while sitting at a bus stop, if I was interested. I told her no. She didn’t seem phased.

When I walk home at night there’s usually people fighting in the parking lot, sleeping on benches under old coats, asking for change on corners, pulling out their hair in alleys, waiting near trash cans for people to throw out glass bottles, scraps of food, wandering out into the middle of red lit intersections, passed out in the wet grass in front of my apartment building, holding their arms out in front of them to see if they can still balance, peeing next to garbage cans, trying to hold onto that dying fix they spent the last week saving for, those few hours where they don’t remember.