Reparations

REPARATIONS

The street shakes slowly off

in lighting shutting fro and fro

to let my lover stumble on the snow

and gently pick her way up to laugh.

The men in their cleaning cars leave

the lines and ankles bound to brick and work

clean and piled along the edge like towers

going off in spades of flame

so she can walk.

The dapper men cannot talk freely

to wrapped passerby because of the sound of the machines

curling.  The knives have tripped,

the very sharp knives have been flicked.

The tracks are followed and made clean

and run upon the cape glove and cape and boot

but do not gape at my washed girl put aside

like walls of cities laid to soot

or idiot children in brick buildings who have died.

St-Lambert, circa 1982.