Canadian winter
The carpet of my one bedroom
Squirms in its pixelated glory.
It is dirty because the vacuum is broken
And I am young.
And the third or fourth best-ranking views in this city
Are from buildings open to the public in the daytime hours.
This is nice to know
But we can’t smoke out here,
Which will just have to do.
Today’s winter is still and sunny
Like an old painting.
It’s worn round the edges.
Later when the fairies break their wings in the sharp breeze
It may snow just a little
Especially around your house.
And I’m beginning to realize
That I don’t know how to sit around strangers
Where to stick my fingers or tongue
Whether to make hard or soft or a kind of lingering eye contact.
Do they look at my skin first?
Or the length of my hair?
What do they think of
Without meaning to?
And what do you do
When the rooms you look to escape to
Are also frozen?
Hotel golden
We drive
through this new world
with skies that follow
then spin in circles all around us and
strangers we will only know
through eyes.
How lovely though
to know
we will be here for a while.
Home is prettier from inside the dirty bus,
like a drive through some gallery of art.
I make mental notes of diners I must check out,
parks I must walk through,
write in.
I will forget this tomorrow
But right now, it is important.
It baffles me how easy it is to leave this town
Any town
never here
never here.
You should go to school here.
They paint like you do!
You’d make easy friends,
people who finally understood you.
It’s small, uncomplicated.
It would settle easy in your midnight drink.
And the bus was dark then,
when it made me think
of the time we travelled and
the back of your
crystal earring pierced my neck,
as you fell asleep
and I left you lying there,
on my too-small shoulder
for a time
weeping onto my own sleepy cheek
(for just the sheer pain of it),
not saying a word,
because I liked you,
a lot.
So, when the physical pain of it
would return in a few years
at least I’d be prepared.
And in this sleepy town, it’s impossible to get work done.
All we do is think of our next meals
and lie around on our stomachs
in this golden,
badly decorated hotel room.
I think my friends and I are beautiful
in a strange way
I think we could suit a rainy sky,
A train, slipping away
A dirt road, unending.
And I don’t miss you on
this night.
You are dangling from a thread
and to be near you,
I must dangle too.
We are precariously over the edge now,
comfortable always
in the uncertainty of it all.
And it’s pretty,
I think, how
we are home
nowhere.
Dalhousie poets is a rotating column in the Gazette’s Art & Lifestyle section featuring poetry by students on various subjects. Interested in submitting your verse? Email arts@dalgazette.com.
Recent Comments