Lonely in the City

It's not like
we'll be lonely in this city.
Not when you're so much like
the ham in a sandwich; not when
it rains milk every saturday, or,
if it's sunny, the sidewalks melt
like candy bars. It's not like we'll be
lonely.

(I shake my head whenever
someone mentions your names;
they confuse me. I tap my fingers
nervously on the seat of this bench).
I'm not so lonely-- I mean,
when you seem to be made of
french-fry looks darting across
diners from over your beard,
when you're so much like
humanity-coloured milkshakes or
mustard-headed streetside
hotdogs I hardly have time.

Tales of the Broken Social Scene: 7/4 Shoreline

After dusk, we dragged couches down to the beach.
The fire was smoky and the sand was wet. It was too cold, too late in the year
but we stayed out most of the night.

Our conversations were like accordions,
stretching, elongating, singing, folding into themselves, and
everything moved at half-speed. Late-night seagulls
flicked up against the cold red sunset.

Haina, fingers steepled against her little pointed face told us,
"If you try to steal the beat, the beat will steal you."
James sat on the sand, back against the couch, feet bare and white,
jeans damp, watching the tide and warning us, "It's coming; it's
coming in now." Ian Curtis told me quietly that it was time,
and he wanted to get away from lies that he lived, to love what he lost.
I counted stars, told stories.
Before we went home at dawn, I helped to
push the couches out to sea.

My Dear, On Sundays

I
expect I am learning too quickly.
My fingers arrange themselves like
chocolate flowers against the wood of the
door; my eyelashes are sweet and tiny, I
print playbills on the skin of my neck.

My dear, on Sundays I am
clean and new, tear-gold coins
bit between my teeth; I am
a dappled mare, guided
by the reins of theory held
in your knuckly hands.

You take me to visit a guru,
pushing my hair out of my eyes
and directing me to curtsey. He says
I am beyond hope,
and when you stride to the window,
he whispers to me,
“Are you sure of
why you're here, my child?”

I shake my head.
I am seldom sure.

Deportment for Sadie

“I am always
thin and proper,
collecting henpecked men
in a little cup that I keep
in my pocket.
My friends are mandolins and gondoliers;
they lead me by my forearms
where my freckles arrange themselves
into a design like a kitchen set;
pumpkins and onions,
apple and radishes in a cornucopia.
They lift my hair from my neck to reveal
where its chocolate strands wander off
bewilderedly into skin.

My guardians are an uncle with a
greengrocer's visor, an aunt of great stature
and their two full grown sons.
They say, “Sadie, where did that
bruise come from?” I hardly know.
I skin my knees when I walk
too fast, bruise my shins, knock over
china plates and juice that stains, so I
stand quite still, pretending the world is
a convent I will be sent from
if I do not behave.”

COMMON AND GARDEN DRAGONS

Your grandmother tells you that
the common and garden dragons are
nothing to fear; feed them tea and a bit of meat-
bacon, or perhaps ham- on a stick, and they become
quite tame. It is the wild green dragon and the
great blue dragon that are dangerous.

And you dream of swashbuckling,
heroics; I dreamed once I was Wendy
Darling, swimming in murky blue beneath
a pirate ship. Your eyes grow vivid and
your teeth fight hideous cities through
invisible lantern light; you have
rescued me on several occasions.

Summers pass, in which
we tame two or three garden dragons;
one was a little pink-eyed female and she
mistook your thumb for a bit of meat, on a
stick. You yelled and bled, and another
yellow scuttling dragon flamed a little
in the herb bed. I dreamed I flew through
a murky blue sky above the lagoon on
Never Never Island; to bandage your hand
would make me shiver.

st. francis square

I am made of paper; I dissolve in the rain, disappear in the wind, wait for you to write on me. I meet you in St. Francis Square; we are like a pair of mulberries in our cardigans, but the difference is this: I am a mulberry of mohair and laughter, fluttering with my two-dimensional eyes, and you are a mulberry of musky earth, purple and hard to discern. You freeze in the winter, compact in the rain, wait for me to grow in you.

mixed grain

dear, darling; you're
cold and calling,
sifting like honeycomb grain
through my telephone.
the antennae comb the sky,
my feet on the shingles;
a singular sight in this
upright town.

cracked wheat in my palms,
soft oats and brown rice--
dear, your eyes are so nice when they
look at me. rye, round barley
oh my darling your mouth is so
strong when you
laugh at me. millet, maize,
enormous days my golden my
darling my love mixed-grain.

just anger

My eyebrows, the muscles of my mouth, and my cinnamon hair, are partitions of the wind, which comes in from the lake all polluted and cold. November, and industrial brothers, click under my feet on the shore.

Behind me, the city is eating trees, pulling with stoplight teeth at the tea-red leaves. They shred and flutter onto the sickly grass and after I think for a while, I lie down in them.

At times like this, I am sometimes met by a just anger; it lies down beside me, dark eyes the colour of figs and skin that smells of pepper and fir. It wears it's shirt the way a house wears black paint, but it cuddles me against it's chest like a nest. My breath is shallow and spiced with India.

standing offer/birthday saints

I could offer you
a plate of pancakes or a riverboat,
to jump ship or the purchase of several
pounds' worth of finally finished;
lamb's ears soft and green,
phrases in a basket, all lobster-
and salt-coloured; I could offer you
a cup of ocean, a handful of islets,
a kiss on the back of your neck;
a tribe of pencil-thin men
with long moustaches and
sandy hair to
be your friends and offer
curt advice.

I could offer you curds of cheese,
clotted cream, impertinent remarks;
I could offer you a
sudden burst of solid insight
the colour of canals and orange rinds;
I could sing you to sleep
filmgrain songs and my head
on your lap; I could risk losing you
to a girl made of brown sugar, I could
welcome you home to a wasps' nest.
I could let you love my hair,
I could love your biscuit teeth,
I could be the colour of grapes and black beans,
I could be obscure, and unflattering,
and yours;
standing saints,
birthday offer.

eggplant/aubergine

don't stand there like that,
watching me so hard;
forgive me; i'm your little criminal,
forsaking my family, dissenting,
prickly as pears.

fondness and residual hurt
in a fruit basket on your table
are a constant reminder to me,
constantly reminding me that
I must not love you, I must not
love you, your eggplant eyes
your aubergine smile.

And so at night I sit on the rooftop,
mouth full of breezes and intinerant
grapedark voices. I hear yours if I sit very still,
hovering over my shoulder,
with your aubergine eyes,
your eggplant smile,
whispering, “forgive me,
I'm your favourite
criminal.”