went to toronto again for the evening. escaped and wrote.

The critique of wasted time and conversations found only in women’s bathrooms.

The women stand,
legs like rows of cedars.

Some slender, lean.
Some curved thick stems.

Elbows resting,

they vie for the mirror
in a vulgar attempt
to paint beauty
like it could be constructed
with two hands and tubes
of tints.


Their talk is a foreign dialect,
nonsense!

They call those outside,
whores, and each other,
amongst themselves,
after one leaves the room.

They are animals
in high heels and short skirts,
Blow-dried hair,
bottle tans.


I hide, feet up in the stall.


Listen to each new stock
come in rotations.

Always the same garish
squeals.

Toronto, one.

Stalking across the curb

weaving in and out of machinery

horns blare in constant refrain.

Berating; they take away

any beauty here.

This sad wreckage

Of attic contents,

Pieces here, there

Strewn in alleyways

The wires ensure claustrophobia

Pains in chest

Entwined in the sky pressing down

All these wires.

I am probably extinct

Skulking across the pavement

A drawl in step.

The crack whores

With their frail bodies,

Shirtless in the alleyways.

first school road


A bridge, horizontal,
straight,
sturdy across the busy highway.

White lines lead
to grandparents houses,
to hospitals,

An
escape route.

My city has become infested
with incubus men lingering
at my doorway
waiting for me to materialize.

I will raise my voice above theirs,
for now there are only hymns

As effective as prayers
without praise.

This is my exodus.

The road stretches flat
like the bridge.

There are bends and full tree lines
that bulge out of their
Given land.

I want to emerge from this machine,
Loiter in the corn fields,
almost full grown.

Hide,
wait
to become a whole being.