Oily pavement shimmers
Painted by neon and headlights
That warm to a false glimmer
Embers of dreams that live only at night.
Toothy brick scours leather-wrapped shoulders
Above too-small skirts and too-tight jeans;
The darkness uncovers
What we least want seen.
The passing cars and seductive signs
Blur into a cosmic river
Drowning those naively straining to divine
Howa bright-eyed child becomes a swine-flock’s fodder.
Pills and experience have inoculated
Against wind and rain,
For appetites must be sated
As the City fats on inner pain
Which dulls the voices saying not to ride
In the foetid truck whose driver, grinning,
Accepts another Offering
Washed in by the tide.
Snow to Sand: Poetry, Stories and Musings from Canada, the Caribbean and Ukraine 