Catherine Simmonds
Queen Street West, Toronto, December 2000/ January 2001
Queen St W #1
Salt bites
at asphalt,
its white bloom
cracks at ice.
Red catch
the snap of bricks -
could shatter
a house.
Here breath
plumes,
falls
straight
to crystals.
Light
moves
north south
in lines.
Queen St W #2
Sun-down
in sheets
the sky's escaped,
light
blows
sideways.
Corners
thieve
they take us in
mirror-like
appear
on other streets.
Queen St W #3
The city
hangs
hummingbird fast,
crystals
scatter out
under
flux
written -
gas names on
nighttime
hoardings,
futures
peel of f
raise wind
blurring.
Queen St W #4
Nothing there,
mirror wet
the intersection
swallows stars.
Walk 2am, 3
trees lit up
in their arms
bags, loose with
vent-steam,
salt rattle.
Thistle -
petrified
slipstream us
back -
cars
at the lot edge,
blink of eye.
Queen St W #5
Light in the wet road
air
reds
and passing.
Faces rise
out
pale, rimed.
Windows pass
cars
people mob, break
at the corner s
other side.
Lights swab
peel back,
bloom
under
vapour.
Queen St W #6
This morning
cold
has baked the road
dry white.
People pass in
changed shape
bent -
so many hooks.
A cement truck turns -
fluid
suspicious
- a day like this.
Departing cars
print shadows,
missing light.
Queen St W #7
Outside
the street softens
slackened papers
rise
out of snow,
show the wrong year.
We unfurl -
wet wind
licks at the cars
kicks at the damp boxes
we are stuck with.
Sky
through
the crane's arm
mirrors back
metal-wet
the inked road.
Sounds wake us
altered -
the street car
mumbles
into its loosened
wires.
Page(s) 44-45
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The