lapsus linguae

first day of spring

The first day of spring,
and it looks like it too.
Fresh footprints in the backyard snow.
A bird or two in the bare branches.
The heater’s turned down to medium.
The laundry’s hanging out on the line.
. . . . .

cross-platform dreams

A morning of metaphoric dreams.
Saw people I hadn’t seen in ages.
They were themselves, but more so.
I helped a self-absorbed friend set up –
she was late for her own vernissage.
A nomadic friend and I forded a river –
she was living in a field. Next door:
A minimalist friend turned antique dealer.
Ray Charles bought a plate from her.
Her prices were high and I wondered:
Where had she been hiding all that stuff?
Then I reviewed the dream for usability,
cross-browser, cross-platform compatibility.
Disappointed with IE for Macintosh, I woke up.
. . . . .

sun at the door

The dog paces the apartment.
Toenails clicking he whines at the door.
He knows there’s no one there.
He wants the pool of sun in the landing.
. . . . .

one ticket bus tour

Took a one ticket bus tour:
Cote Sainte-Catherine
to Cote des Neiges,
Sainte-Catherine to Parc.
Met a surgeon, went to the library,
Bought two pairs of jeans,
three used books, soap,
dish soap, and cotton balls.
All my errands in on afternoon,
but did them round about,
because it’s sunny out.
. . . . .

spring-like

I went out yesterday, because everyone said it was spring-like.
The alleyways were full of slush but the dog shit hadn’t melted yet.
Wind wore through my thin spring-like scarf, and I forgot my gloves.
My hands turned raw-red carrying the too-heavy grocery bags home.
Maybe when everyone says summer-like it will really feel like spring.
. . . . .

Charlie’s Angels Hair

The birthday girl had her breasts taped
into a brand new sky-blue backless number.
Everyone just wanted to be near her.
Two film-set fans blew across the dance floor:
a writhing wind tunnel of Charlie’s Angels hair.
I saw a guy I used to know, semi-Biblically,
(Psalms? Sticky palms. We were on our knees anyway).
The girls got good and sweaty, and stuck together.
The guys circled, watched, and got (almost) nothing.
And at the end of the night the birthday girl said:
Really, I couldn’t have asked for more.
. . . . .

Reading Anne-Marie MacDonald

“If you move around all your life, you can’t find where you come from on a map. All those places where you lived are just that: places. You don’t come from any of them; you come from a series of events. And those are mapped in memory. Contingent, precarious events, without the counterpane of place to muffle the knowledge of how unlikely we are. Almost not born at every turn. Without a place, events slow-tumbling through time become your roots. Stories shading into one another. You come from a plane crash. From a war that brought your parents together.”
Anne-Marie MacDonald, As The Crow Flies, Toronto: Knopf, 2003. page 36.
. . . . .