o god, missing my dog,and hey, what do you know,
there’s treasure here
among these forgotten weeds,
so this is where they hang out,
all those women’s breasts
cut off to keep our lawns green
and dandelion free,
here they are, dancing
their breastly ghost dance,
stirring up a slight wind in fact
and behaving for all the world
like dandelions in seed,
their featherwinged purple nipples
oozing sticky milk,
so what am I supposed to do,
pretend I haven’t seen them,
or like I don’t care
about all these missing breasts,
how they just vanish
from our aching chests
and no one says a word,
and we just strap on fake ones
and the dandelions keep dying,
and the grass on our lawns
gets greener and greener
and greener
4
This gold and red autumn heat,
this glorious tree splendour,
splayed out for sheer pleasure
over asphalt and concrete,
ribbons of dark desire
driving us madly toward death,
perverse, presiding over
five o’clock traffic
like the queens on Church Street
grand in their carstopping
high heels and blond wigs
and blue makeup, darling,
so nice to see you, and what,
dear one, exactly was the rush?
Or oceans, vast beyond ridicule
or question, and who cares if it’s
much too hot for November,
isn’t it gorgeous, darling,
and even here, in this
most polluted spit of land
in Canada, with its heart
attack and cancer rates,
the trees can still knock
you out with their loveliness
so you just wanna drop
everything and weep, or laugh,
or gather up the gorgeous
leaves, falling, and throw yourself
into them like a dead man,
or a kid, or a dog,
5
O the brave deeds of men
M*E*N, that is, they with phalli
dangling from their thighs,
how they dazzle me with
their daring exploits
every time I cross the Detroit River
from down under, I mean,
who else could have given
themselves so grandly,
obediently, to this water god,
this fierce charlatan,
this glutton for sailors and young boys,
risking limbs and lives, wordlessly
wrestling primordial mud,
so that we, mothers and maids,
could go shopping across the border
and save ourselves twenty minutes
coming and going, chatting about
this and that, our feet never
leaving the car, never mind
the mouth of the tunnel
is haunted by bits and fragments
of shattered bone and looking
every time like Diana’s bridge
in Paris, this is really grand, isn’t it,
riding our cars under the river
and coming out the other side
illegal aliens, needing passports,
and feeling like we accomplished
something, snatched from
our busy lives, just being there
Afterworlds
Gwendolyn, I call you back
from your bed of roots, delicious
under moist scented worm nudged earth,
speak to me,
rising from my bed of stone,
finding the courtyard empty,
the gate swinging open,
O prophetess of blood and fire,
your famous ancient lions crouched
beside Lake Ontario,
drunk on the jewelled wine of death,
tell me, in this unexpected resurrection,
as from drowned Atlantis out of the carnelian sea,
as from
