Edmonton, Alberta

How the Spring Came North

They soared on the sails
Of the last wind south,
They rode in the rage
Of a blizzard,
The children whose parents
Were Wilda the Wise
And Wonderful Wilfred
The Wizard.
They streaked with the wind
Over mountain snow
Toward a gilt-bordered,
Cloud-blackened sky,
And came to a place where
The wind held its breath,
In the calm of the
Hurricane’s eye.
They felt a strange power
And [...]

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Edmonton, Alberta

The colossal truth of everyday
The colossal truth of everyday:
I find it always at the grocery store.
Each aisle bringing me closer
to the promise that I’ll change,
and perceive, and rid myself of
hurtful presumption.

Like that crumpled woman, transparent skin
sagging, hanging from atrophied biceps
that ebb and flow from a used-to-be white shirt..
She hauls down bottle after bottle of
sickly sweet [...]

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Edmonton, Alberta

Fire Tower on Nose Mountain
for Vivian Demuth
Catherine said:
she lives in the sky.
Wait and see.

The tower is perched
on the summit,
spindly metal legs
stretching up,
grass neatly trimmed
around its base.

I stand at the edge
look out into sky,
then down:
a sea of trees,
the road a rugged chord
twisting its way up here.

Some of us climb
the tower to the top
or as far [...]

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