We wrote swears on the ocean’s edge while the sun rose.
What hearts are these, that could love the beach’s
most vulnerable, toe-stubbing thoughts, printed on its yawning forehead?
And what hands are these? Laced around coffee mugs of wine,
our lips and teeth purple with the effort.
The dog only knows the truth of it, and only for an instant:
White washed legs and a tongue of sand.
Later, our bodies will ache with acquired wisdom.
The trees are the only ones keeping fit
on this windy, early March afternoon.
Bending, and reaching with black skeleton hands
to the passing drivers, hurrying by underneath.
I imagine how cold & hard the parking lot pavement is
I picture myself falling on it, my cheek hitting hard.
I wonder when I will next take a fall like that,
and exactly how much time I spend, thinking about falling.
The hard piles of snow lining the streets
have lost their charm at least two months ago.
And we’re all patiently waiting for their gracious exit
via mid-May’s warming rainstorms.
Until then we’re pushing through the grey
wearing red scarves and drinking red wine.
Being indoors with friends, laughing by the heater
and trying not to fall.
The last time I spoke,
a building collapsed somewhere behind me.
A hospital maybe,
or a book store.
My friend Mike Erb is in a photo contest, he wants to win.
There’s some voting going on, and if you want to vote you gotta give em your email, but you know, oh well?
Go here to do it to it:
http://www.billboardphotocontest.com/bin/Rate
Rain like a phone message;
pulsing, just out of view.
A female voice fills the house,
pours in and around the corners
filling the darkest parts
under the bed, behind the couch.
It’s not a voice I recognize,
not one I’ve spent time with.
I try and picture, in my mind
what this voice’s lips look like,
working together with tongue and teeth,
pushing words through my phone and under my bed.
“This is All Creatures Vet,” she is saying.
“Carl Winslow is due for his checkup.”
I look over at the cat who’s perched
on the back of the couch.
He stares back at me knowingly,
twitching an ear in faux-nonchalance.
We’re quiet for a while, me and Carl,
and the plastic phone, and the rain.
Stuck lamenting the green walls and grey floors
that match milk-tainted cups of day-old coffee.
stop-watch afternoons yellow in demeanor,
carefully asking unimportant questions
about an unclosed tag or a bad idea,
or a looming deadline. Another near-miss.
And it’s enough to drive you to drink, or at least to the library,
where you’re asking the spectacled, sex demon, librarian at the counter
her thoughts on missed deadlines. And she laughs,
telling you she’s be unemployed without them.
“How the fuck is no one high-fiving this guy? Look at him, look how awesome he is.”
“Oh yeah, that guy, yeah he just stands there all day.”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno, he just stands right there in front of the legion with his hand in the air. People hardly notice him anymore.”
“He’s hanging. They’re all just leaving him hanging all damn day.”
“Yeah dude, that’s kind of his thing, I guess.”
“His goddamn thing is he wants a goddamn high-five and people are just looking at him like he’s the asshole.
“Jesus, why don’t you go slap his hand if you if love him so much.”
“Oh I love him alright. And you would too if your town wasn’t such a bunch of goddamn ignorant, non-fivers.”
“What..?”
“This guy is a national treasure. He should be in a hall of fame.”
“What hall of fame would he go into? The hockey hall of fame?”
“What? No… I figure they’d have to build a new one for him.”
“With a bronzed statue commemorating how he lived and died; with his arm in the air.”
“Yes! Man. I’d high five that statue everyday on my way to work, or the grocery store to buy bread for a sandwich.”
“Have you had that new oatmeal brown bread they’re making now?”
“Yes I have, and it’s delicious.“
Tons of gray sweater this morning.
Standing on the sidewalk
our hands in our pockets,
except my other one
in your mouth.
I feel your mouth-muscles move.
Say the words
laundry hamper in italics
like that.
It feels like an accent
French maybe, or English.
“Spot of tea then?
Cheerio and right, right,
bollocks, flat, chips,
car boot sale” etc.
That is how I think some people talk.
I’ll have a table this coming weekend at Sappy Fest in Sackville, so if you’re in town for the tunes, come say hi. I’ll be at the Legion on Lorne Street, Saturday from 12 – 4. Unfortunately, I won’t be reading, at the reading.
