Tuesday, March 31, 2015

One More Paper Heart




One More Paper Heart     


Dream-long day beside this window
waiting for you. No clock
in my head or anywhere.
Old cream-yellow radiator
from the forties puffing warmth
gallantly, a Lancelot in those ribs.  
Beyond smudged glass, the L-
shaped neighbour block, bricks
& windows, taped ACs—  
snow skirls in vortices, dot
matrix static, gone abruptly—

(nowhere other waiting, calling)                 

calmly letting in the world,
I learn your green-gold eyes.



Sunday, March 29, 2015

Beggar's Dream




Beggar’s Dream


Disc so pale and flat in gray winter          
sky—sun gone moon

in peaceful haze
of day-night-day, floating

shyly to view receding
behind drifting flakes—

a beggar’s dream
in wan tumbling light,

scuffed dime now glimpsed
now gone—glad

fleeting ghost 
of unearned, unhoped-for keeping. 





Thursday, March 26, 2015

Eyes Blue (Approaching the Lunar New Year)




Eyes Blue (Approaching the Lunar New Year)


Kids tugging at my clothes, small dirty
fingers busy far below my sightline. Where             

did you go? Why did you stay away so long? Remembering
you’re childless means nothing to this plucking.  



Monday, March 23, 2015

Eating an Orange in Agincourt Mall



Eating an Orange in Agincourt Mall


Segment by segment. Carefully.
That’s life these days.
(Or always was? Clear            
seed misplaced in banquet blurs.)

Rotate in the hands with
gentle pressure. Pick a spot
with give to poke teeth into.
Unzip with thumb and two
pronged fingers, trying for a continuous
curl, forgiving yourself the snaps
and pick-aways. Plug with
pith tail levered free, and
clinging web of membrane
detached in branching strands.

Now. Colour’s fragrance is this
taste reclaimed from rushing roads 
and greasy hours. Spurts of             
sweet sweet juice as flesh gives

way, dissolves, becomes a part of
you.




Wednesday, March 18, 2015

March Squirrel




March Squirrel


Wedged
blackly in
branches encased
in clear unbroken cold,

seven weeks from zero.

Nothing in your paws
to peel or rotate,
your jaws gnaw
chronically

on hard, budless bark.

Winters
all have ends
save one. You and I,
can we mine null hours

to find ice flowering?



Friday, March 13, 2015

East Window



East Window


Inching my chair back to stay in sun’s slant
path, its February arc brisk beyond 

this east window. Frugal as a basking lizard,
I finally run out of speckled ledge, find

myself in cool shadow, beside the Christmas
cactus. Flowering again, it needs water.


Friday, March 6, 2015

Looking for the Mother




Looking for the Mother           


Another toddler, the second in as many days, gone
wandering without clothes out into bone-shock cold,               

-30 wind chill. This one still alive, spotted and brought
inside by a neighbour. Police are looking for the mother.

Later in Longo’s, in the busy produce section, this small
old man with pinkish juice flecked with seeds dribbling

down his chin, evidence of a snatched piece of fruit he
ducks his head in vain to conceal. Ragged clothes, thin

and old—someone should tell him to wait at least till he’s
in a quiet aisle and to stock his empty cart with some items.