[Toronto. April 13, 1994]
Tirana, they say here, like it was
god damned bloody Albania,
which isn't far off
in percentages of the
hopeless or anarchists.
No youth in the youth
on Yonge Street on Saturday
night, the turn of the season,
a most Equinoxious time,
soot ice still mugging curbs,
black hard ice, packed tight
in a sea of accents
from da Car-RA-Bean, Mon,
girls with the musk of heifers
wandered in from Alberta,
I watch one with dreadlocks
woven from her eyebrows,
skating the sidewalk
in scuffed Doc Martens,
the shirttail of a Blue Jay
jersey snapping in night air
like a battle pennant, her
loose titties underneath
swaying like Jello, Fuck off Chief,
she shouts to a Black Jacket
Odawa with rheumy eyes,
the grin of a man struck
silly by the axe-handle of history.