Tagged Trivial and Bagged

On the porch watching red wave
from a garden on rented land
is much of what I am.
It’s the now of it I know
where I sit spilling life,
flooding to words and worry.
All lost someday I hack
a symptomatic smoker’s cough,
cough up the bile of all shoppers
tagged trivial and bagged.
All things cheaper is no
treasure to leave behind,
our noblest words made
traps sprung shut.
We expect more measure
than we bargain for
in faith, that’s why.

The Woman Next Door

One quiet Friday a thief said
to the woman next door,
“you’re like my grandmother,”
holding a hatchet to her head.
Caught weeks later it seems
he’s like me — forty-three.
I can imagine his mean face
at her basement window,
dirt and shattered glass
descending with him,
damp sheets hung to dry
in the half-dark by the furnace,
shelves of preserves and cookie tins,
a travel trunk filled with fine linens
and photos he'll never see.

Once I snuck up the narrow stairs
while Baba slept and swiped
20 bucks for beer and smokes,
little criminal, the lamb in her life,
strayed from the nursing home
where she lay wondering
what became of all her things.
Used to ask about me.
Wisest one I ever knew,
died in her sleep.

Heloise. The woman next door.
Didn’t learn her name
until it appeared in the paper.
Lived here almost a year
before I saw her face peering
down the space between our houses --
a man barring windows
set off the motion detector
and Heloise retreated inside,
alarmed by the sound.

We hide in tight spaces, each afraid.
Should have visited more often,
don't think for a moment
I don't know that.

Rain

Rain comes and still comes day after day,
weather bigger than anything we imagine.
I've heard each drop is like a jewel,
that her tears fell like rain.
It's rumored some god filled an ocean,
and sorrow knows no bounds.
But I prefer broken cloud and showers,
monster shapes and wind.
I want the sky lit like electric fleece,
to see plain where each bolt strikes,
and measure my heart against the thunder.

Perfect Moment

Was it all for one instant stopped and made
and don't we try to stop it all again?
Hold still for one perfect moment,
touch some simple unchanging thing.
Rein the sun and erect a heavy stone,
then trace its shadow into place.
Return one day and hold your breath,
watch the shadow fill the marks you made.

Controlled Intersection

Two ruined men wait on the church steps
as a booze-battered Metis works the corner.
Shoulders hunched against the drizzle,
cold black hair plastered against her cheeks
(once a lady to be reckoned with)
she prowls the intersection for spare change.

The light turns green and a neon jogger sidesteps the crew,
followed by two teenaged girls who can’t stop giggling,
then a group of tourists waving guide books.
A business man casts a mean eye over his turned-up collar,
and two spinsters whisper close clutching their purses.

A waitress late for shift barely makes the amber,
head down and running, she's cut short
by a van jumping traffic.
The drifters on the steps stand and holler,
the panhandler raises her fists in mock anger --
they all know an opportunity when they see it.
And the waitress tips them a dollar.

Stink

I sit quiet
on the waterfront
deck of the Vesuvius pub
waiting for a ferry,
trying to compose
small boats that ply
the tranquil waters,
set down the white sun
before it sinks
over the distant
blue mountains.

A well-dressed woman
at the next table
turns to ask
if I am a writer,
and I can sense
she wants me
to be the writer
of a mystery novel,
not some bloody poet.

I smile and shrug,
fix my tired gaze
on the far shore,
where tall stacks
from the Crofton Mill
fume at the sky,
and wonder
about the deadly
stink of my words.

Punctuation By Crow

I am sitting on a seawall
writing about something
more important than birds,
when a crow coasts over the beach.
It lights on a spit of sand
exposed by the fleeing tide,
cranes its head to regard me
through a single, gleaming eye,
hops twice sideways
and caws three times.
Well-dressed, I think,
its black suit every bit
like a punctuation mark.

Drifting Life

Look at a map of the coast,
imagine the small islands
fit back into narrows
bays and deep harbours.
Look close at how the land
once held tight together,
see where the broken shore
came suddenly unattached,
or peninsulas drifted apart.
By gauging this movement
in mere centimetres per year,
two metres is a fortunate span.