I.
Montreal streets manufacture desperation
last call in the city, 3 AM
bars closing soon
And all the leftover people
a thousand last-kids-picked
eye each other with wary hunger
across slot canyon intersections
Asking directions to
familiar bars or bus stops I too sit unpicked
a lost kid
atop black cubes of remembered dead
eyeing the fat gay boys and their weary
pimpled high school girlfriends
Wondering if he'd ditch her if I
smiled at him just right Like bowling pins left standing
at 3:00 am everyone rethinks their options
coffee or more beer
admit defeat or try to catch
last call at the Stud
go home or take a chance
on a shadowed stranger Or perhaps we just take a moment to feel superior
to the homeless kid
asleep in a shuttered doorway
or the hooker past her prime
hungry for food and eye contact At least love still matters to us
we think
At least that is why we still walk these streets Jotting in my notebook
(lover enough for tonight)
I see strangers slow together on the corner
ask for a light, cup hands around a flame
whisper together and walk slowly
into the dark
(two more kids finally picked) II. Let's start our own team
me and you and you
The too old or too hairy or too young club
The too fat or too thin or too ugly club
too angry, too happy
or just too damn weird
We'll make a club just for us
and gather together here
on the darkest street in Montreal
under the only burned out streetlight in the village
we'll join hands and
pool our collective rejection into
a superhero chest pounding
crime fighting wail We'll be the cream that sloshed over the cup's edge
The red wine spilled from the bottle
The spray from Vesuvius
too hot and too strong to ever return to earth
We'll gather into a cloud of joy so huge
that it will block the sun
and darken the skies
Of all those
just right so perfect first kids picked
They'll squint and wonder
who stole the sun But we won't see Last kids picked
are always first
to fly
|
