(i) last minute of play
Four-faced, the clock sees everywhere.
Dead centre over the ice, it hangs from chains.
The players glance up, exchange a word, a sideward
look—less than a minute to go. They know time’s rough
and tumble. Space and time, that’s where they live,
arcs and angles, a quick move into open ice.
Their flashy physics.
Spectacles shift and glitter behind the glass.
Maybe someone they know but they never look
at the crowd. They’re at the bench to hear the plan—
“Boys, you get a bounce here, things can happen fast.”
Left out on the ice—they might as well be
on the moon—both goalies eye the clock,
one’s for zero, the other likes infinity,
but things can change.
Get going clock.
Slow down slow down.
No one in the building likes time’s pace.
(ii) you could drift out here forever
Jesus, here we go.
Seventh game and seconds left to overtime.
Talk’s over at the glass, the captains
waved away. The referee holds four fingers up
and folds his arms, four seconds he wants put back
on the clock. Son of a bitch, an old defender
sags against the boards. Still, imagine the power,
to kick time’s arse like that.
The light begins to fade. The cat wants out.
The hours to game-time leak away.
A hint of green pushes into the woods on the long par five
behind the house. I watch the cat sharpen up on a favourite stump.
She yawns and stretches out to twice her length, then leisurely,
she makes her way toward the trees.
Driving into the city, the traffic’s heavy,
creeping along in a cloud of exhaust. Stop and go.
The radio low. Country songs, warnings about the snow
coming down from Canada. Clutch in clutch out and drift in dreams
of accidents and overtime. Blink and you’re done, a dead man
or worse, a radio joke until four in the morning.
(iv) ice time
The guys arrive as if at random intervals,
lay out their gear, lucky shirt, same skate first,
same old jokes about my liniment, Jesus,
Ukey, lose that shit why don’t you?
Roll their eyes and tiptoe by.
Check the clock and tape my own stick,
thank you, heel to toe, no wrinkles, tape the ankles.
Time to go out and get loose, guys in twos and threes
at home on ice, tucking pucks lazily under the crossbar.
Same old talk, someone you got to slow down,
a glance where he’s talking it up
with his own guys.
Here’s the house where I live, I can’t say no.
Howe and Lindsay’s eyes on me. Pronovost, tough
as a bag of batteries, slaps my pads. I see myself as I pass
in the glass, pick up the look from the other side, a nice pair
of knees that edge apart as I go by. I get a whiff of ice
and something in me starts alive. I take
a few shots, catch and flick, feeling
quick, clank behind me,
lucky too.
Then back inside and bedlam now. Adams
flapping but I don’t hear. Holy Mary, don’t let me
fall on my face tonight.I try to loosen a pad, my shaking
hand so bad Jesus Jesus. Tommy Ivan shoves in beside me,
knowing he needs to settle me down. New cufflinks on.
Knocks my stick for luck I’m nodding but Mother of Christ
I’m dying inside, can’t keep still now everybody wants to go,
the clatter and chatter, rockers, talkers. “Gotta have this one.
Gotta have it, guys.” This was where we’d bellow out
some raunchy song when we were young, scare
the bejesus out of everyone. “Nice neighbourhood like this,”
they’d say. “Who let the bloody DPs in?” Tommy drums
a rhythm on my leg—I watch his moving hand,
distracted by the veins and lines that make the hand
a miracle, an acrobat, a thief. Gotta have it, guys.
I brace for the roar at the end of the tunnel.
“Give me a hand here, Tommy, tuck that in, that—look
that bloody strap.” Then bang the door and Jesus here we go,
someone shouts those words I love and dread, I hear
them all my life—Let the goalie go first.
(v) carpe diem
They yammer at the press in towels
and the present tense—“So I see Goldie sneaking in
and what I think, I think … ”
I flick the water from a blade. The living
moment’s where they ply their trade, you get a chance
you make it count. They like where time gets in your face
and open ice where you can really fly, or close-in battle
when the sticks get high, the action hot and heavy
as a leg draws up the sheet and slowly
opens out, my living Christ. They swing behind the net,
glancing up to find a gap, an open man, they like the crowd
up on their feet, the bodies piling on, the heft
and taste of women overhead.
“So I see Goldie sneaking in, I’m thinking, man,
if I can just draw Lumley to the post then slip it back
to him, but holy jumpin’ don’t let this one get away.
You get your chance, you better make it count.
I guess I just get lucky, Fred.”
I wipe the other blade and smile.
Seems a neighbourhood I know from long ago.
(vi) big river
Stirring in the dark from ache to ache, crabbing
after scraps of sleep. Outside, the muffled quiet says the snow
has come. I love the city softly locked.
Let it snow forever.
I watch her shoulder’s gentle rise and fall,
like she’s floating on the water.
Her back’s a miracle, so long and smooth
and brown, and there the jut of hip in envied sleep.
I trace a nail along her spine. Where has she been to get
so brown? What was she saying as I fell asleep?—The smell
of smoke from open fires, barking dogs and swimming out
into the harbour in the dark. Drifting off, I’d felt her
fingers trace their path from scar to scar. This was Watson,
this one here, Henri Richard, and here’s the night Pit Martin
cracked your mask and blackened both your eyes, this one
you can hardly see, your brother on the rink
behind your house…
How good was that tonight. The guys
were bouncing off the walls. Jack was grabbing
everyone—he knew we had it in us all the time. His buddies
from the press were happy too, no trouble getting anyone
to talk tonight. You hear the racket in the shower,
“What a smack, that little head fake shit … ”
“Just a sucker punch, hey everybody
knows the guy …”
I don’t need her clock to know the time.
I shift the arm again, but can’t shake something
someone said last night—“Hey, that kid out there
in Edmonton, that gaping hole between his legs,
but man he’s got the corners covered.
Ukey Ukey watch your ass.”
I crab a little closer to her back.
God, how bad I need this heat.