What to say to my muse the power plant
who makes auras for the city’s night hours
with a sputter of wattage and volts?
What to say to my muse the steelworks,
who sends hot blasts down the standpipe
for fig trees to thrive in?
What to say when the power plant
hums and clicks and shines
like a fairylit woodwind instrument?
What to say when the belting out
of playground pieces gives way
to the making of girders for steelworks?
What to say when McBrides carpets the Roch
and makes soft, six-foot dams
out of flammable detergent?
How to contain them all
and do justice to their invention of
and disregard for protocol,
how to juggle their sweltering egos
when I walk where figs
leave oily splats on the towpath,
street lamps turn pale in daylight
and latex dries in a bucket slung round
a rubber plant’s tapped green trunk?