Hastings–Sunrise
2015
Copyright © Bren Simmers, 2015
all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [email protected].
Nightwood Editions
P.O. Box 1779
Gibsons, BC V0N 1V0
Canada
typography & cover design: Carleton Wilson
Cover image: Bren Simmers
Nightwood Editions acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publisher’s Tax Credit.
This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.
Printed and bound in Canada.
library and archives canada cataloguing in publication
Simmers, Bren, 1976-, author
Hastings–Sunrise / Bren Simmers.
Poems.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-88971-310-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-88971-049-8 (html).
1. Vancouver (B.C.)--Poetry. I. Title.
PS8637.I47H38 2015 C811'.6 C2015-901126-4
C2015-901127-2
Table of Contents
N
21 × 13 blocks
Not to scale
Petals strung like popcorn
March 21
Trees fill in their dance cards
April 7
Crows karaoke with the alarm
April 19
Scouting alleys for lilacs
May 7
Open windows
May 25
Landscape formed by bright awnings:
Hong Hong Bakery, Pies 2 for $7,
Keys Cut Here. On Mr. Donair’s spit,
the earth rotates. Papal smoke emits
from Polonia Sausage, semis shunt
downtown, second-growth steel glints
in the distance. This two-storey strip,
fat quarter of blocks still a livable scale
in a city where cranes hoist the skyline
toward Shangri-La.
Learning new streets on foot,
how long to grow routes, wear paths
from green grocer to deli, dim sum to tailor.
Beyond address, habit, what makes
home? Surely not the sour waft
of rendered chicken, nor the caged budgies
we watch waiting for a #14. People
who perch at our perimeters define
our edges. At work, I record
when the tree swallows return, the first
salmonberry pickpocketed by temperature.
From a third-storey apartment, park
uniform shucked, I survey shipyards,
the North Shore. Find the rhythms
of street trees, swing sets, glimpse
a larger pattern—the phenology of
panhandlers, brunch crowds, for sale
signs, my life reflected in what
I choose to record.
238 N. Kamloops—
Tyvek-wrapped,
I covet you already,
your bay windows,
west-facing porch.
Weekly, I’ve tracked
your growth from concrete
footings to rising frame.
Modest shack, laneway
house big enough for
my
