I used to think
verandahs were a construct for contentment
instead I’m here
extrapolating on the reversal of repute,
50 years from now,
Jilly’s on Queen and Broadview
will receive from future Torontologists
on a pretentious but never watched
literary newsmagazine
vis-à-vis a red-flamed editrix
having settled herself appropriately
in a brown leather club chair
kissing faux mahogany shelving
hiding a deficiency of real gilt-edged books
but still standing and making do
with a room full of interns.
It’s enough for a person to say
they’ve done it,
acquired national opinion rights
on the precise amount of cheese
and study needed
for poutine and Stendhal.
the resident poetry-loving investment banker
just enough to reward me a fat cheque
and another 500-print run.
Ingratiate myself to book club admin groupies
by owing a big thanks
to incest, milliners, and Sioux Lookout.
Warrant a cropped likeness
of my insulated, too-big-for-my-snow-pants head
drawn beside a weekly column
in the Arts section of one of the dailies.
Make a dark chocolate–munching émigré of distinction
fall off his chair in round-bellied laughter
at yet another awards dinner.
Forget what CC and soda taste like
on a budget.
Take in a mangy stray and call her Maurice
Show her off at the Jazz Festival
and be extra careful she doesn’t get stepped on.
Write a poem about love, jazz, and Maurice, and how she’s
so cute, I could eat her.
I’m getting off the 501 streetcar
and stomping my big, black boots into the sidewalk.
Surprisingly, my posture is perfect,
unburdened by a knapsack full of poems
and one vintage men’s Burberry trench coat.
I’m heading home on Queen West
in an asymmetrically zippered coat
and a Northbound Leather shopping bag in tow.
Carrying war wounds and forgotten accessories.
Feeling confident, cocky even, assured.
Even after it occurs to me I’ve never even considered
daylight before.
Relegated mornings to that dead air
occupied by
waiting for coffee to be made for you
while Cole Porter sings the blues away.
Sends your lover away.
Mornings are anoxic and pure,
full of phatic lovers and shared baths.
I’m seated at a new dining table
you salvaged from the street
and my bottom is cozy on a once-white chair
but now a sunburnt polypropylene
and showing that sickly pallor of disease.
I’m trying to believe that I will remember this night
as a pleasant evening of tea and innocuous banter.
Blocking out
that after pushing aside
our worn Cohen vs. Dylan debate
I ask to use your bathroom
and find a tin cup of makeup brushes by the sink.
A full set.
Professional even.
There’s a loofah sponge in the shower
and I’m livid.
Angry that my mother never warned me
to stay away from
men in leather pants
who wear metallic nail polish
better than I ever can.
From men who tell you:
“you smell like bamboo and freshly cut grass.”
From men who trek all the way to Scarborough
to find tiny D-rings to make your four-inch stiletto boots
look couture.
I’m getting off the 501 streetcar,
feeling confident,
cocky even, dammit
assured.
All I see now
are tuck shops full of ginsengs
the preliminary “g” pronounced hard
and false by a friend who thought
me fearless.
Announcing gutturally it’s time
to clear the detritus
too many hours have passed
tableside over a paltry purchase
she’s spent and the lights are giving way.
One red
two black
starts a lazy exquisite corpse,
lying unfinished in a haze
of the recognizable smoke and scent
of hard-topped construction cut
with digestives and filler.
Inclined to rush out
with trusted PIN codes and
newly acquired phone numbers.
Quashing old allegiances
and established sponsorships of
rehabilitated behaviour.