Multiculturalism


you didn’t grow up on my street
what the fuck do you know about how
to hide near nightfall or chase
the milk wagon for slivers of discarded
ice when July melts patchwork tar
in subdivision gutters and storms
slide along a slick horizon tearing
rain from cloud udders
or how November leaves rattle
in the graveyards of summer gardens
how winds leak through windows
and how we sat spouting Descartes
and beer after a day in the halls of
academia mixed with rebellion

oh it was future we created over
and over again with such fervour
and such music to a rhythm we’d never
heard before in the triangle of streets
we called the world of growing up
in Canada in Ontario in the region
of farmland and Mennonites in
the world which was never enough
when we could reach through our
radios and televisions into another
aspect of the whole world view

the universe explodes although there
is talk of the coming implosion
that fractal of the image I have
of myself sitting in front of a window
with a diminishing view of sidewalk
and lawn and rain falling gently onto
unraked maple leaves and a smell
of earthworms before the first
cigarette to celebrate another breath
in the world fast leaking out
of the door of life