standing on a street corner
with the red hand flashing,
beckoning me forward
and my destination forgotten.
if the destination is remembered
or a point of departure apparent
the center of everything
moves ahead or is left behind.
being is trapped in the forgetting
and everything in the being forgotten.
the hand flashes,
and i don’t know.
caustic reasoning
melts the heart
which is why
when i say
“”
i’m really
saying
“i’m so jaded it’s sick.”
four tiny sticks with their barks removed
a matchbox with a stamp and a dried flower inside
some loose buttons from the clothing of women I once knew
i am
my best
i am
admitting defeat
i’ve seen
your belly
button
a lot
these are the lyrics of a neil diamond song.
this is a portrait of a nude model.
that is a family barbecue picnic.
if you look to your left you will see the range.
these are spock’s ears.
this is a cordial handshake.
that is french toast with fresh fruit.
on your right is george w. bush eating 50 eggs.
these are ants making their rounds.
this is a letter explaining everything.
that is a mistake.
some say: “it is filled with the magic of the orient.”
these are dinosaur bones reassembled in a believable fashion.
this is a narcotic rush.
that is a bird watcher’s paradise.
if you look carefully you will be able to make out the face.
i speak broken french at night
to some potato plants
in the ally way behind my apartment.
ants nearby have traced routes
from under a fence to a few stems
with aphids.
we are careful to avoid
stepping in each others path.
it seems we are alike;
we change
our trajectory
to avoid other wildlife.
potatoes are a simple crop;
i am a simple man,
which conflicts with being an emotional man
or being a reasonable man.
reason lost me when it couldn’t prove that some things
can both exist and not exist at the same time.
my yoga instructor says
“life is easier if you have a mantra.”
hers is
om
which means
something about something
and the universe.
mine is
i can’t believe it’s not butter
which means
about the same.
i haven’t seen a canary in ages
and i don’t really miss them.
on occasion,
while sitting back in my chair at work
i look at the pastel coat rack, shoved in a corner
with three empty hangers hanging off one another,
forgotten long enough to be routinely avoided
and i think of canaries.
my cousins, charlie and lois in scarborough,
used to keep two canaries, one blue and one yellow,
in a rounded metal cage hanging from a stand
in their living room.
i always assumed the birds
were routinely fed but mostly forgotten,
as pets in cages can often be.
but on a winter evening they called me:
“jane (the yellow one) flew out;
she flew like a dart.
we’d let them fly around the house
but we accidentally left a window open”
they didn’t know what to do
except toss some sunflower seeds
around its cage in their back yard
and hope that it would return.
my parents, before they started wintering in texas,
would feed birds in their backyard.
they had a lot of birds but mainly blue jays, chickadees
and, more recently, starlings.
my father would fill the feeders from 50kg bags
using an aluminum can to move the feed.
the black husks of sunflower seeds and corn
charted movement in the snow.
they called the little yellow birds
with the black on their backs
“wild canaries” and they would say that i am aloof just like them
but i am sure that they were just finches.
i turn the fruit
over in my hand;
first a pear,
then an orange.
quiet and gently i set
each fruit back
in place,
the pear–
with its bruises
and the orange–
with black spots
and green circles of mold,
their flaws facing down.
