Real Lace

with arms outstretched
90 degrees from my core,
one palm up and one palm down,
i feel like i'm being lifted

the lunch breakers below are scuttling.
i watch the bent heads,
eyes at shoes, hands holding cups,
mostly oblivious to my levitation

my eyes shoot streams of coloured ink,
spilling on sidewalks,
doodling on windows,
designing a street with different buildings
different people, different trees, different food

feet apart, bent knees, open chest,
sinking into my hips,
i dream of you as a cartoon
with kid hair and a toothy grin
and imagine we're holding hands
down the happy street

a mad city chicken:
a madcity chicken
a mad citychicken

on
the
other
side
of
the
wall


you
are
reading
ulysses

: Pat wrote a song on the skytrain the other day and sang it at open mic at gallagher's coffee shop where corbin vander zalme sings regularly

: We didn't know he was singing - thought he was watching corbin - or we would have gone

: He may be shy about it - said they asked him back

: We r at piano; dad at class; boys in bed

: We haven't heard it so no idea what it's about

: Emma is in intermediate choir and got picked yesterday for liturgy choir

: Song/dance class switched songs to manhattan transfer's Boy from NYC - she has a few one-line solos

: Teacher just switched songs last week - do you know the song? Emma sings - he's kinda tall - they all sing ooooooooo; then next kid sings

: I think it's from the 80s

the 24-hour mark 
of no human contact
happened at about 4 PM

so at around 5
i bundled up to meet
the downtown ottawa rush-hour

i chewed on isolation
and it tore like parsley leaves
between my coffee-stained molars

a kitchen table
under 5 MacBooks 
and costco-brand trailmix

1000 emotions,
he throws out a few

discrete, sequential, horizontal
no hint of convergence

a spectrum, amanda, he says,
pulling his two hands apart
to pinch the end of an invisible
spaghetti noodle

i can tell he wants me
to think more linearly,
maybe to picture a meter stick 
between his thick jewish fingers

well, i had already shuffled my
deck of 1000 cards
and reduced them
to millimeters
before he had finished
tugging at his noodle

it's what i would've pictured
had i ever tried to envision
particles of a scream

a sheet of glass
on which my plasticine dreams
love to bounce

until i open my mouth that time
and let out my scream
that shatters the glass
into tiny shards that 
twinkle like christmas lights
on the tired cement

they collect there,
the shards do,
while i passively consider
the exact collision
of sound and spirit

 I marched up your front steps,
1, 2, 3, thinking: how, dare, you.
An aggressive pointer finger
Shoved contempt down the throat of the buzzer
A choking sound...and then nothing.

Back down the stairs, 1, 2, 3, 
How, DARE, you, and a turn back
To face the door with feet,
Shoulder width apart.

Back up (!), 1, 2, 3, 
And four powerful knocks, each containing a
Threat of intentional defiance

Finally two eyes peer out from the mail slot
The door opens, an exchange,
The determined indifference of cats,
And the door closes again

I marched down, 1, 2, 3.
Irritability, exhaustion, defeat, 
Feet scuffing non-committally,
To ideas of painting the baseboards
Cooking a pot of stew and freezing it.

this morning
i'm on my best behaviour

lying straight, arms at my sides
taking up only one slice of bed

i'm not stirring,
just breathing softly
on my best behaviour

my fingers scrape the bottom of the mail slot everyday
looking for a "secretly i loved you" or new clothes from grandma

living here, in this beautiful canadian place, is getting easier,
but i still have dreams of windy vancouver days
on the beach with charlie, having wine with rebecca

the prettiest face I’ve seen in awhile
served my orzo vegetable salad tonight

he had grey eyes and one diamond earring
he had shaved his head
and still I thought he was pretty

I think I may have stared too long
or maybe I couldn’t quite make eye contact?
either way, he looked uncomfortable
and I do think it was my fault

he passed the plastic package of salad
across the stainless steel countertop,
took my VISA card and
mumbled something about ‘your boys',
'i don't see them around much anymore'
something about maybe only in the mornings

my boys? who?
ohh my boys. the phd students.
that’s when I realized that he recognized me

this guy was my barista through the coldest February months
of my first winter in Ottawa
my family, I guess, sort of a step-sibling

did he have hair before? or did he wear a hat?
and what on earth is his name?
I said something about working somewhere downtown

‘that’s why I don’t come in anymore
I go to the other one,
but school is almost starting…
so this will be my home again’

I think he asked me where I work,
or maybe I just told him?
‘the detox centre,
down on bruyere there’
I think he nodded

anyhow, he forgot to give me a fork
and how long must we have looked at each other
(or looked down?)
during this transaction?
anyway, no fork

hair down is more sexy:
one, two, three women on queen west,
all with hair tied back.
one woman's cascading nutella locks
catch my glance and keep it

my eyes wander down to her cropped cardi
to a sliver of silver cami
and a peak of smooth olive flesh

i can't tear my eyes away from her hips
(they're wrapped in worn denim, fitting just right)
even though i'd be embarrassed
if she turned from the crosswalk light just now
and caught me staring

i vow to deepen my hair colour,
soak it in hot oil,
grow it long,
and wear it down

i knew i needed to do it when, on a wednesday night, listening to billy joel while waiting for a phone call from my lover, i considered performing gender.

my own voice playing back on the recording stunned me. it finally sounds like how i feel! or maybe, i finally understand myself enough to match my identity to my sound - gender ambiguous. i do not feel femme-feminine, though i don't feel very butch-masculine either. boyish. that's it. i feel like a boy.

i suppose i experience rather boyish insecurities, also: i want to be taken seriously - i want to be treated like a man.

god it's humid
i'm biking through sour cream

look
he's selling his drumkit
he's selling his drumkit because he's getting married

an experiment:
no hands down bank st.

my arms slice through thick air:
blistering pork, coffee grinds, hot metal

ready to flower
really just ready
to peak, to plume

to trim and clean
to smooth and preen
she's ready to bloom

i grin happily at my window box of daisies.
they, who seemed so determined to wilt,
are smiling; smiling and leaning towards
the eastern morning source

(easily propogated, my ass, i thought,
when i first stared into tufty yellow centres that
refused to return my gaze)

because i watered you, you petulant creatures
you smug white beasts.

now, they are still beasts, but i am their master

i feel i have accomplished enough with my daisies
to spend the afternoon in casual correspondence

and i like when carol wu changes her valediction
from sincere regards
to a colon and a right bracket

how fun to use the least curteous and formulaic of closings
(YOU ARE AN ELEPHANT, I AM A PIZZA)
i'm thinking one day i might say them to carol wu
(at least i might giggle at the thought on my bike home)

the onset of nausea at 
grief that shocks me
feels like one dehydrated saturday
after too many almonds

i gag like i did when i was 14
after too much gatorade
and too many wind sprints

She waits in Confederation Park,
Scuffing shoes, minding her bicycle,
Rubbing fringed blades of under-watered sod
(Selected for their ripeness and shape),
Between her camomile fingers.

She brings the odd white root,
One that looks like cream wrapped in cellophane,
To thirsty lips and glides it onto a swollen tongue.
She imagines the lawns in Jacksonville:
Of blades so firm and thick, they bounce under dogs and lizards.

Filling her mouth with sweet yogurty grass juice,
She feels so young, impatient with an unsolved heart,
Longing to love Rilke's questions themselves,
"like locked rooms and like books
that are written in a very foreign tongue."