A Proposal

No, I know that you and I

Would not work out

But neither do I and I

Half the time

And you seem to be a mess too

So why don’t we just be messy

Together?

Squirrels

Yvonne and Flanders are colouring pictures with crayons in class. Missus orbits around. Rachel and Francine are sitting at a nearby table, also colouring.

YVONNE. I drew you a watercolour. I forgot it at home but I drew you one. It has lillies and lilacs and blue. I know you like blue. I like it too.

Beat.

Did you draw me anything?

FLANDERS. No.

YVONNE. That’s okay. Maybe we can draw something together.

FLANDERS. I don’t feel like it.

YVONNE. Watercolours are my favourite. Do you know a lot about flowers?

FLANDERS. I know poppies.

A Responsible Guy

TOM. [leans in] My girlfriend eats money. I mean really. You think it’s funny but I’m not kidding. I don’t mean she eats money like I have to take her to restaurants all the time and buy her expensive shit or whatever. I mean she eats money. Like she takes the bills and puts them in her mouth and chews. Look, man, I know you think I’m crazy but I’m telling the truth here. Here, here, look [he produces a half-bitten toonie]. Toonies are her favourite.

Shorthand

My time moved in such summer ways.

I was stoic, I was frantic, I was stasis, I was storm.

I missed things so completely, it was almost

Like not missing them at all.

My emptiness and I had tamed each other

And grew wild in the tangles of those parts we couldn’t know.

Together, we decided that love passes sometimes

On such sweet, such quiet days

That only someone sitting in the whirling of my inside

Could discover

How like the sunset

I have made my loss.

This and That

Lifeblood

Harpooning

The mountain that dismounts from the little bike

A woman whistles as you walk right past her in the well-lit street

Railways of streetlights vanish

In the restaurant window you catch a half-glimpse of someone you once knew

Then the rip in your favourite stained white shirt disappears

Miraculously

As if it were never there

And you begin to turn around anticipating miracles

Like scary circus clowns popping in and out of boxes

But only shadows fester around these corners.

You begin to fear words like this and that

You refuse to make conclusive statements about yourself because what if

Someone hears you and it has to be true, it has to stay that way

But now you

Then Again

Alone, this rain and I

Are like lovers never meeting

I on this side

Of the glass

And he weeping

Against the side of my home

Some days I stop to listen how he pounds

Wet and thundering

Against so close to me

But then again we turn from the glass,

The two of us,

Both indifferent to the light.

Gratitude

Though these arms did hold you once,

Fed you nightly from a spoon,

Wrapped your head in pretty warbles,

Helped you through the great lagoon,

There will come a day when all your sometime thanks

Will be disdain

Or you might push away

These arms when they still try

Smothering your fears

With love you can never repay