Planning a Haircut
feeling the way your arms rise after heavy lifting
and knowing your legs go the same way
you let them
and lying hereyou can see the mountains’ circle
a year ago Thursday
watching snow caps melt
through shades of rose and blue forest green
the holes in the sky mountains fall through
stars cool and precipitateland weight against weight
contour channel
glacial spring come ocean
continents rise
life forms
and the pressure turns inward
circumference pushing to core
every wish we make
compressed to a single flame
tomorrow you will climb against this currentand weeks later tell John on his rooftop
how on reaching a canyon
below the peak of Mount Rundle
just above the tree line
you scramble up loose shale and turn
to see the trail erode three thousand feet
you feel your body follow
and afraid even to climb down
freeze against the rock face
vertigo
and John will say
You mean
you have to climb down?
Thoung joins you hillside
Vietnamese through Montreal and now Vancouver
of all her language
she writes poetry in English
like speaking through a third person
and poetry is of oneself
stepping outside himself
he always winds up in the final scene of White Heat
Cagney on the summit of some burning tower
raging to flame Look Ma top o’ the world
(I’ve been here before
my fears remain )
in Strawberry Blonde
he’s an Irish mail-order dentist
who takes the fall and gets the girl
That’s the kind of hairpin I am
(you can’t fall off a mountain)
and somehow this brings us home again
Toronto today
where spring has come for the first time
almost a natural occurrence
I am light easy refraction
I’ll maybe do something to save the world
pay more attention to personal appearance
to how things look through the rose shaded green of your eyes
and when you ask I’ll sayEveryone’s in Florida today
and I can’t
for the life of me
imagine why.
