SOMEONE’S CITY

Wind-pummeled grass sweats beneath the death
of a stained, grainy carpet of snow.

I see, in the bus shelter, a crop
of plastic spoons, bright pink and lime green.
There is a shredded traffic cone sticking,
red as roadside sumac, out of some snowbank and

a flittering yellow wrapper, glossy and bright as a tulip
in defiance of the grey drop tile ceiling of sky.

I walk someone else’s streets, admiring their handiwork
and imagining the flat grey building,

improbably tall, that is even now gathering itself
just beneath the earth and preparing to shoot like a sapling.
O, how this spring is premature! The air is tepid
bathwater but the earth does not yield

colour in February. There are two pavers missing
from the street like teeth from a smile, and

someone has sprayed orange paint around the edges
of the void as if to say “watch out,”

or maybe “we’ll get that later.

EPHEMERA

Yellow  

we agree  

is an unconventional colour  

for a front door.  

This  

is an unconventional way to tell  

you that the shopping list’s  

run dry. I leave   

a shiny new sheet on the kitchen table,  

hoping to catch your word   

for bread.  

This  

in quiet awe  

is how I think some evenings.  

Yellow;  

You;  

Bread. 

LIKE SOMETHING ELSE

There is within me   

an orange  

ball. I hold it with two hands  

as it expands, a bright  

lung it  

pulses softly, feeling  

orange.  

I sense a vague evangelism  

in you and realize that  

I must explain  

lest you take this thing to be a senseless  

orphan. You are pretending  

to be a house.  

Wrapping comfortably around  

me but you do not  

comprehend the way that things  

contain each other.  

It waits, I explain, to unite  

simple elements, in sudden  

flashes, making the green  

boughs crowd greenly in the corner  

of the frame, so quickly that  

you really did just  

imagine it. You are  

looking at my explanation  

like a very new painting.  

“You have an orange,” you say.  

Sometimes it can be  

that way, yes. Like fruit.  

But, ah, you have grasped that it might be  

like something else and,  

temporarily, it is safe.  

Something moves within  

you then; you flashing after it.  

But,  

“I am 84 Kortright Road West,”  

you can say.  

“There are six plates  

in the cupboard.”  

And it sees a round landscape, bristling velvet.  

It wonders who is coming for dinner.   

You watch it, bouncing thoughtfully, and you think that 

you could bounce.  

I see repossession creep back  

into your eyes—I know that  

I must act quickly and the irony is   

you could bounce. 

A simple brown wind lifts your curtains,  

rattling the shutters and  

tracking blue through the halls.  

Noticing the sun, a  

brilliant creature  

 lifting itself into the sky,  

I point, saying  

“Something like that.” 

Ted Tocks Covers

Listen to the Music

Originally posted on May 23, 2021

Happy 75th Birthday to #JohnMcFee of #TheDoobieBrothers

“Don't you feel it growing day by day?
People getting ready for the new
Some are happy, some are sad
Whoa, we gotta let the music play”

#TomJohnston #TedTempleman #playingforchange #sonnyandcher #TheIsleyBrothers #BrotherMaven  #FreedomTrain

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