Five Poems

The Great Exhaustion

                                                 You are getting sleepy
very sleepy. When you wake you will not remember
any of this. You will awake as if from a routine cleaning
and the hygienist will have given you a toothbrush, a tiny floss,
and a mini Sensodyne. Clinically proven to build relief
and daily protection for sensitive— It is not injectable
unfortunately. In Whistler your white friends ski
down their own incisors.
                                                 How many episodes before Netflix
jostles your shoulder and asks if you’re still watching?
Are you? You don’t drink but it’s all you do
in the evenings alone while your white friends whistle
down Whistler. There are mountains and molehills
of words for what you are. sad. feel. sad. are. it. Are you
sleepy yet? Seasonally affected? Affect disordered? Begrudging
all the whistlers who cheerfully eat protein bars after sparta
typo sports? Street view autocorrects East Hastings
to a street of gold. A caterpillar enters its sleeping bag.
You are not a caterpillar. Don’t expect wings
to applaud your waking slow. Your life is not life everlasting
or life more abundantly. You are only tired so very tired.

A tree is falling in a forest the tree is falling in a forest
the tree is falling in the forest a tree is falling in the forest
and no one’s there. It is falling in slow motion toward you
yes you are there it is falling slowly with its branches
outstretched I said you were there. Toward you.
I said no one’s there. You thought you were there.
Slowly falling asleep. Slowly still.


Iceberg

                                                    And are you awake
now? Did your line-of-credit increase get approved?
Will you stew beef in the slow cooker? In The March
of the Penguins, the male penguins huddled together
all winter with eggs on their feet. In Antarctica.
If there is such a place. The moon landing. Thomas
actually wanted to finger a fresh wound without
medical gloves.
                                                        You believe bicycles
will save mankind. You’d find a more gender sensitive
word for mankind. You are kind. Not one of a—one of a
genus maybe but not—kind. I know about three evenings
of you. Everything else I had to make up in the night
so they wouldn’t steal your body. For instance
or is it example your parents rolled you from
their flippers then when you hatched your father spit
some milk into your tiny beak.

                                                      Time for a grand statement
preferably involving ice. I guess it’s this. There’s a certain sink
with an automatic faucet in the third floor men’s bathroom
which if I were to guess registers me only
about ten percent of the time. I keep trying. I suspect
there’s no shortage of water behind its silence.


Cliché

                     I was all the clichés of a man in dopamine:
what are you doing now are you thinking of me as well
should I message you? I made myself sick.
There were 48 unread emails and you’re the type a)
to keep a minimalist inbox and b) to leave your phone
at home and go biking through the rain. Apparently
one gets little hits of dopamine every time one gets
a ping. So said a YouTube life coach.
He came highly recommended based on my previous
viewing history. Should I buy you a grocery store
bamboo when will I see you again and after that again
when will I see you was it me or did you
ping when our elbows found each other
on the armrest did you mean to ask me to The Killing
of a Sacred Deer or was it a chemtrail? Another. 49.
Let me count the ways. Let me not to the marriage
of true minds admit yada yada. Last chance
for Insider Previews before Pre-Construction Sales.
What is your iPad access code? I saw a runner
at an intersection wearing spandex that cut off at the knees
and naturally thought of your needs. For a while
everything pointed youward. The weather
was or was not like it was when you zipped your breaker
to your chin. Like a Vegas croupier I tried to deal
my thoughts, to get them all out, as they say,
on the table.

                         It’s over. It was nothing and never new.
One might as well start reading here. Just adjust the tense.
                         O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
                         That’s newly sprung in June.
                         O my Luve's like the melodie,
                         That's sweetly play'd in tune.


Do you know everyone you know by name?

Stuff be happening to me in the future already.
For example? You want an example? For example
no nod from the neighbour who knows me
and knows better than to not return a nod
within thirty days. That you were seen—
that I was seen—that I was not erased under you
cannot be proven. Support your answer. No thank you
for making space for a Civic. That happens
to everyone. Cut back on reading so much
about microaggressions. Civics are not known
for their civility. Not the white ones. True. What
I’ve been feeling, I’ve made up so I could have feelings
to manage for a slight raise. What happened to happen
to me in the future I’ve imagined so I could have a future.
I believe the children are.
                                                   I had a dream
in which the neighbour was jaywalking across Robson
in front of the Sportchek in my dream in his bubble
parka jaywalking through my dream with a white
plastic bag over his shoulder. We have seen
each other almost every morning since then
yet he has never shared what he was returning
nor will he ever admit to seeing me there. 

The end of the line