Are You

still there?  I wonder about  you
sometimes on those dreary days
when rain pelts at the crust of
events and through a murky
window I see your smile — then
I  build a cat’s cradle of reasons why
divergent paths are the death of
who we might have been.
Clay, a café, streetcars clicking by,
conversation blocks, emotions
trying to connect — it is never
enough.  Toronto will never be
enough. 

I dream of so many things and
rearrange what history I have
managed to cobble together, like
a shoe which will allow me to walk
through the gravity pulling me down,
relentless — coffee with Skinner,
chocolates at F2.8, the frozen
waterfall, sunset deck and wine,
a modest cascade of perhaps and why,
a bifurcated dream.  What is this
stream flow pattern?

At eight to six and later, at moon
to sky, at lights to dark, at doors to
locks, at eyes to staring into space,
the minutes pass, eddy, untroubled
water, that age between the first

raindrops in Thunder Bay, and a
tidal pool on the shores of
Baie Saint-Paul, in whose water
events still ferment and memories
of genesis still crawl.