Winter smudges itself away like a mouth
kissed to everloving death—
its sidewalks scrubbed raw like nail beds—
and the world’s heavy heart gorges itself on rain.

You now have no choice,
as sirens ricochet off the block and
students poke their heads out of university housing
on the day their April rent is due,
but to maul your wardrobe three times an afternoon.

Steeped in animal panic,
I used to mill around the perennial night in bloom,
donning but one overexposed and unidentifiable drape.
By the time the moon grew dull with use,
calluses would have shredded my palms to filth—
and the street, with its tongue knotted,
would have offered up its voice to me in one last plea
before morning.

As light populates the sky like nerves
set ablaze by summer’s anticipation,
I grow lonely for the body that ached,
for the body that February thrashed around in its frosted jaws
until the earth hummed at the notice of bone.

But the earth is molting,
swelling to match a better-fed skin.
And morning boasts the same richness as Westmount geriatrics.
And all the while,
my breath is hot with song,
skimming the flesh of a city that unclothes itself
before me.