Between the break wall
And the lake-sprayed sky,
They scream with the gulls,
Taunting the deep,
Invisible
But for their sails
Bobbing as benignly
As the ducks near the shore
gliding for food
On this man-tamed lake
So barren of late,
She no longer regurgitates
Her silver-scaled progeny.
There’s a big white dog out there in the rain,
Like snow grazing
On the hill hiding tracks out there by the lake.
And wind blows rain on my widow:
And the dog’s a pullin’ a leash
And a lady stumblin’ out there
At her end of the rein.
Outside
nothing moves
just air, leaves
plastic paper wrappers
on the wind;
Porch lights glow under street lamps
in shadow cast from the climbing sun.
I’ve been watching media accounts of Mr. Trump since everyone thought he was kidding, and when he got elected everyone thought he was crazy; the kids were scared and my barber had a nightmare cutting the new president’s hair. And I was seeing articles announcing his certain resignation, and here in Toronto we sent a reporter down there to fact check him. And every news organization except Fox and every big name journalist kept warning of chaos and tyranny. But only Fox News knew people who looked like they liked him.
Whenever I ask about the weather
She looks at her phone.
Whenever I ask if there are clouds in the sky,
She looks at her phone.
Whenever I ask her opinion
I think I’m watching television.
I used to be ready to join whatever came along.
And what used to come along were people like me,
People whose strings had come unstrung;
Mapless – like Hansel and Gretel chasing crumbs by a translucent glass dividing life and middle class’
Flickering out to highways like galaxies in a dark night’s sky.
and her own mind
Desolate and wild as the wind.
Faces along the east-west subway
Faces I didn’t know were there
Till the TTC planned a trip for me
Up a path where wind bites, blowin’
To Maine where motorized lame keep comin’ and goin’.
Passed imploring arms, out from the walk at a wall.
And a lady screaming she wants to be left alone
With bags on her arms transfixed under heaven;
And her life
And her own mind
Desolate and wild as the wind.
Guarding the underground: a man displaying coins in a stack pleasantly solicits more.
