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by Kyra Sutton

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You’ve got a monopoly on the city I was born in—
stuck a flag in the Gay Village and Laurier Park and Longueuil; 
Frontenac station down Ontario street
past the yellow M and the Tim Hortons,
the dark roast, the double double, the cashiers
who hated their jobs but seemed to think
we were cute because we were.
Now every slab of concrete
is stained of your face.
From the Old Port to Berri-UQAM,
the gays parading down Sainte Catherine—
which one is you? behind that warehouse
where the pole dancers and dommes gather—
is that you? dropping acid by the dumpster
on the corner— is that you?
running at me, arms flailing,
shining head of a newborn baby,
I’m sorry! bursting, broken from some hole in your chest
like an old glob of phlegm that I didn’t know
was caught inside you.

This is how it feels to do everything differently—
now I watch autumn rot, skidding by
oil splotches and sewer drains,
dental clinics and donation centres,
skate parks and crooked cars, just behind
that anarchist bookstore— your stupid nose
lurking in shapes everywhere. Are you there? 
But you’re not. It’s some 
dark thing, some sharp turn, some 
refracted angle in the sunlight that I can’t explain
looks just like you.

Now Rosemont station will always hang
grey and heavy with doom, that industrial pulse
of bass and drums will echo over
the rushing wind and honking trucks.
And at a certain hour of the night
when the moon is full and white
shining down on the Van Horne underpass,
I can still see the shadows of the dancers
moving at the mercy of your fingers.

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