Plot a course through downtown doors
then drift along the concrete shores
of asphalt oceans navigated
          under stars
          imitating
     broken curbside glass--
     over crunching gravel miles
          measured in half-hours
and meted out in heavy, fogging breaths
          and squinting, midnight eyes...

Counted out the blocks, counted steps
and concrete squares by metered
three-four thoughts dancing across
     reflected skylines, just behind the eyes.

Each step's a held breath,
each footfall a prayer on crumpled paper,
each set of shoulders, a hanger for...

                                        coats are homes
                                             for hands
                                    rolling up in pockets
fishing for some solid anchor,
sinking into years of walks and silent words like these.

                                   * * *

Listing hard, adrift for years
     water-logged and pocked--
                    no anchor--
shredded sails and leaning masts
                    tell stories
                  of deck fires:
                   leaping rats,
             and charred strakes

Clear deck,
               empty hold,
                              abandoned helm.
                     this coat's Atlantic fog.
Frayed rigging like cobwebs stretch
          down and across
like lines on faces aged by the frost
          on midnight walks.

Strike the colors, mate...
Admit you're lost.

I wouldn't say I wasn't hoping--
wondering what it'd be like--
to strike the band up, strike a spark
and set your amber eyes alight.

The night was warm. I almost froze up.
You flowed through my awkward ice.
We walked home laughing,
                             I was fading.
                             Drenched...

Your voice was red wine on the night...

                                           I'm alive;
                           I guess the Winter lost one.
                Scraping frost off a tarnished record, now.
                                     Spin the season.
                          Warming up to Springtime.
             Pour out beside me under iron purple clouds.

I kept a cask of my best stories
fermenting for nights like this,
to fill your glass, distill the tension,
drown the thirst of shots we'd missed.

The night wore on. You told the Winter,
"Smiles're mine--you keep the rest."
We thawed the town out
                          with a buzzing
                          warmth

spread through our drunk and laughing chests...

                                                      ­              Orange Street
                                                          ­          bridge.
                                               ­                     Melting in the dark.
                                                           ­         Lots cast:
                                                           ­         two stones in the Clark Fork.
                                                           ­         Walk back,
                                                           ­         we're
                                                  ­                  run-off from downtown.
                                                       ­             Four sheets,
                                                         ­           after
                                                                ­    breezes, get turned down.

                                        I'm alive;
                           I guess the Winter lost one.
                Scraping frost off a tarnished record, now.
                                     Spin the season.
                          Warming up to Springtime.
             Pour out beside me under iron purple clouds.

                                 Nothing gained
                       worth a ****'s assured, so
                tip a glass, tilt a grin and angle home.
                               A thousand lights
                       pinned to night, 6 blocks left.
     We're catching up. Where'd our mislaid footsteps go?
            
                       Led us right here, I suppose.

Settle down
I'm sinking in
     to this dingy motel tub.
Stain the water
     with the paint
from my sardonic, smiling face
now, babe, I got a flower in my hatband and
a sloshing bottle in my white gloved hand.
     Do you think we'll still be laughing
                              in the morning...?

Blinking lights and bleary eyes
in a neon wash for a bloodshot lifetime,
and a swallow
     is all I wanna take.

     Besides, I'm still holding the bag.

Puddle up
pull the plug
     colors circle 'round the drain
Pollute the night
     with a laugh
from inside this facepaint bath.
And, babe, I been swirled 'round the world's full glass
and, for a bit, I guess, it was a helluva gas
but, ya know,
                  nobody makes it in the end...
                  
                  so where's the joke end or begin?

Reddened nose and ***** jokes.
Life's a vacation, I'm a pig in a poke
and a mouthful
     is all I need to take...

     We all get left holding the bag.

You said I had a face like
                 cinder blocks at sunrise:
Ash grey staining
                 red in the ending night.
The late winter cold
leaked down into my bones.
You pulled my hood up,
kissed me once and walked home.

                                I was a weak
                                 kneed floater
                                 that night.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
                                 The deck's cut,
                                    it's raining
                                       outside

If I had
       one more card
tucked up my sleeve, I'd lay it down
                      you wouldn't play
                      'cuz your hand's weak
Game's no fun. Folding. Heading straight out the door
                   Cashed in your chips and that's fine.

                   I'll take off and try to stay dry.

Your living room was greyscale
                 blue and white at midnight.
Ash on my tongue,
                 had X's in my eyes.
I'll choke down the bile
building up in my throat--
this mouth full of crow.
I'll walk out, grab my coat.

                              from your couch
                             turn the **** and
                                       I'm gone.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
Kick up my heels, over pavement, walk home.
Half-rain and half-snow. Half a mile left to go.
                                    the jig's up
                               and our steps were
                                      all wrong.

Let's take this
      time to find
some ground for standing. Thawing out,
                      I'll leak away
                      with the meltwash.
One more week draining to the Columbia
                   and your front step'll be dry.

                   ...and your front step'll be dry...

Keyring's clinking on my cut time stride
under lights, buzzing islands in the ink sea night.
Slink away from my murky years,
                  they're piling up
and I'm hunched, walking dumb
          across the hazard yellow lines.

Behind me
          the night just rolls up
almost outruns me to my front doorstep.
                                                The hungry
hills enclose
                    our mid-size
                    opaque town.

Old partners,
          forgotten crimes we
did and left trails of clues, all gutshot
                                       creep hunching
through this skull
                      beneath a
                      fraying cap.

Keyrings jangle like anxieties
in my chest, humming static in the core of me.
Sinking in to familiar tones;
                  shades purple grey.
And it's cold, striding slow
          through the west side warehouse lots.

Behind me
          the teeming sidewalks
shout half-slurred spears at my back retreating.
                                                The half-light
spills itself
                    on wrinkled,
                    trenching brows.

And out there
          the night just rolls up
to darken the mat by your front doorstep.
                                                You're just a
single thought
                    and several
                    miles away.

Maybe it's two years feeling lonely,
or I'm juiced from drinking way too much coffee.
But, when the Springtime shows its Joker's face,
I'm less likely to sneer and turn away

                                                           ­               Than I was this time last year,
                                                           ­     when I had lost all ******* bearing,
                                                        ­            while I was swearing at the stars,
                                                          ­                    aping Oneida's* navigating.

And, now, I'm on the eastern side,
I'm walking slow, it's early morning.
I don't even want a brush,
          to paint a blackout on the sun.
Well, I've had a few false starts,
I've made an art of second guessing.
Finally don't need a crutch
          to clear the days of all their must.

'Cuz I think I'm aware, now...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet.

Well, maybe we should lay off the whiskey,
or maybe it's two years in this city.
But, when the Winter creeps down 'round our heads,
we should welcome her just like a sneering friend.

                                                        ­                      'Cuz the other shoe will fall
                                                          an­d we'll be walking halfway barefoot.
                                                       ­                  Frozen roads'll get gridlocked,
                                                 we'll ***** for months that we can't stand it.

For now, I'm drifting through downtown,
I'm striding fast, it's early evening.
Ask a stranger for the time
          and wonder what's been on your mind.
And I'm always running late
but make an art of playing catch-up.
I'll catch up with you next week,
          we'll kick the pattern off repeat.

'Cuz lately I've been thinking...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet
          and green things up!

From the top of the Terminal,
your size was splayed out,
a grey **** carpet for the Red River Valley.
And The Forks right beneath
                      our weary walkers' feet
was a thick drop setting up in the center
of your ash grey forehead.
Traced a thumb down Taché and St. Mary's
to the peak of your left cheek on Fermor.

Your traffic light glance blinked us
                    right to a stop
as blue bomb thoughts and temperatures dropped
at the base of our minds
and your wide, widow's peak sky
formed a cold iron bruise 40 minutes past 5.

I've held your muddy diamond eyes
in mine, how many times?
And you'd sigh, sometimes
         from your North End scar,
but the Assiniboine bends around Wellington Crescent,
a stifled, spiced laugh from the failed rebellion
of your Province's youth.
          And you know I'm no novice
to the uncouth barbs of the Winter,
'cuz you wrapped asphalt arms
                                       nice and tight
'round our shoulders.

Osborne & Morley for an A-frame embrace.
The face of a city, its wrinkles a sketch
of laugh line drives for donuts and coffee.
Crows' feet stretched through The Exchange.

We followed your grin
                from
corner to corner,
from Richardson Airport
to Transcona Yards; one earring a lifeline,
the other, steel bones.
From your St. Norbert chin,
to your twin St. Paul crown,
we would wander,
kiss your River East temple
                  then call it a night.

I have names for every smile you gave me:
Vi-Ann in the Village,
The Toad in the Hole,
St. Boniface Cathedral, that first time
in deep snow.
                 I want you to know,
               you frozen Great City,
your terrible beauty is written on me.

Each side-slanted grin I shared with your sidewalks
               encircles my history now,
                          even still.
Fill an eye with 5 years
                of joyous, drunk laughter
which seeds your purple sand sky with fog ghosts.

Still-frame your patchwork, frostbitten face--
the Perimeter Highway's a jaunt-angled toque;
                                           keeps you warm--
I still wear you
           when late Autumn light takes me back.