summer evening garden haiku

star gazers open
in pink twilight while the day-
lilies drift asleep

getting back

needing a reason to sing
she seeks open minds and
green places where
voices are optical
through tall grasses,
cut by a sinking sun
red on the backstory
then pink between webbed fingers,
a clicking metronome
counting days in july down to
august (turned 26 / now she’s on doubletime)
she speaks poetry loudly into
empty wine bottles
and on the return claims one dollar
thinking the canada council
is really paying out big this year
mainly, though, its about
finding a restaurant close to the office
where they serve cheap sangria in pitchers
and the locals are lesbian enough to
make her envious of short hair
and cramped living quarters –
everything north of Vancouver
becomes a pulp-scented winter cloud
and (against her better judgment)
she falls in love with soft water,
a good lather, and an orange cat
shedding his coat, permanently.

Moby: He would kill me if he were any bigger

paper girl

she hands out papers at
the base of the stairs at
the skytrain station, main and terminal,
her fingertips black smudges
her bag heavy is
slung over her shoulder,
weighted with newspapers – “The Metro”

she is easy on morning eyes,
with a slight figure, brown sweater
and jeans, a purple shock of hair
now faded in the purple glow of 6am –

in the wintertime she is there in
toque and coat, sometimes
the newsprint blackens her
face in places where she has
brushed a stray hair,
where her fingers met her lips.

love, the maple tree and your 2nd storey window

he is sleepless at dusk

walking home, feet lighter

than yesterday under the last light,

street lamps hum before they

click on and glow orange dusk

particles which he stirs with his

passage through their pools.

from an open window, her voice leaps

and catching itself on the branches of

the maple tree at her sill, it slides down

with ease – a singing voice,

not perfect but sweet enough

to turn his eyes up

and drink in her showering silhouette,

the running water a drum while

she sings “here comes the sun, doo n’ doo doo,

here comes the sun”

he leans into her light,

open-mouthed and floats upward,

toes lifting from the pavement, he

reaches limply for the maple tree

and the leaves graze his fingertips

as he passes over the canopy

and disappears.