Paused in the shadow of bereavement, in the long shadow behind
a rooftop billboard at the terminal end of Queen St. West, under
the latticed and scaffolded backside; some crude transistor panel,
its soldered nodules of starlings clustered in the matrix. Pulling a hand
from the weathered dories of quartered melons beached in a shop
stall, you’ve tagged a cluttered longing that paws at the given, shirks,
recoils far short of clarity. O ineffectual mouth, admit to loving the world
to bits
and pieces . . .
Saying, “What can I know?” — “Do not presume, one
of the thieves” — “You can’t take it with you” — “How should I begin?”
All that.
Scene: you’re tottery, leaning in the living ellipsis, swamped
in the world’s brute demand that it resemble itself. Loss won’t be thought
through. Likenings abound, abide. Sun-glint buttering the corrugated
lake. Gilt causeway could carry you to Buffalo.
A face clouding over,
the lake’s crust peels back, loosening a pool where geese are preening
clipped wings, honking at transports that bull down the off-ramp,
long necks like middle fingers gloved in black kid, or spigots tapping
the lake’s music, or garden stakes driven in to support whatever shoots
up after the flooding recedes . . .
Eyes down, touch your toque and go.