Collingwood reverie
The snow a country here. The busy birds. An earnest hand: surrender. But ask the boys and they’ll say it’s a backside smooth as Sunday morning. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Toronto taxi
Go. You. Stop. Go. Brake. Dart. Weave. Are. Bolt. Stop. Now. Some. Merge. Where. Fast. Go. Switch. In. Stomp. And. Stomp. Watch. This. Act. Now. Don’t. Think. Go. Town. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Toronto busker
He dreams of water. The sawing of the bow and her skirts alive, salt on the tongue. CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Subway violin
Fingers on strings pulling the day on and on to the tap-tap of busy shoes. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Amazing Grace
Your fine bones and the weight of you. The night unending and the swell of this tiny song, humming. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Dishwasher
Late, and the babies upstairs sleeping. Quiet but for this watery heart throbbing. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Patio Door
Put your shoulder to the ponderous weight of things behind glass. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Clothesline
The sunny ripple of bedsheets and small clothes. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Twinkle, twinkle
The woods and your red cheeks and the baby tucked, just so. You find the words and sidle up alongside, swelling with rhyme. CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Bell at Stag Harbour
Time stopped and the clear blue sky. We wait for a ship like all the women before us, chilled to the bone by the song of iron. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Evening bells in Cuetzalan
Busy hands, stilled by sunset, the heat of the day fading. Ring the bells, sing out to the children. Gather them home. CLICK ON RECORDING TO LISTEN
Organillero de Coyoacan
Armed with a hand crank and union card, he tatters under the midday sun. Sounds in sepia murmuring amidst the ring tones. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Noon Mass in the Cathedral
A hundred glossy-faced believers in the cool embrace of stone. Their prayers rise to the noon day sun trailing lunch bags. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Political rally in Tlaxcala
The absurdity of it now: fireworks and too much margarina, yellow shirts, urgent faces, a girl willing herself empty. That mannequin and how it strolled. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Lightning in Coatepec
Rain in our last hours, that brooding sky. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Schoolyard in Cuetzalan
Could you live here? he asked, meaning the trumpets and the bone-rattling streets, the crisp white shirts and someone forever sweeping a sidewalk to dust. Could you? he asked, meaning our son, unborn, and our daughter’s lily white hand. Darling, a part of us always will. CLICK ON RECORDING TO LISTEN
Mamacitas
Voices spill from the valley, cool and round, too early for dogs. Women call themselves to work as the clouds part and the earth twitches: how darkness anticipates dawn. Dress the church in heliconias. Fly the flag of the mother of mothers. Walk on the bones of the boisterous dead. These streets are a…
Noon bells in El Centro
The cathedral is sinking. The state, agitated, has responded with scaffolds and prosthetics. Everyone has noted this except the cleaning woman who each night slips in to touch the Lady of the Immaculate Conception and wipe away her dust like tears. (Originally published as “Teotihuacan,” in Goodbye: Poems for Leaving, Cubicle Press, 2007)…
Printing Press
We are all devils here, where iron rings with the heft of words. CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Red-winged blackbirds
Call it summer, call it promise, call it radio from a Dodge patiently polished. We lay on our backs in the sun that month, holding vigil for September. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN