The Poetry Society

Sweeping ants from the sodden birthday cake,

we bicker over who left what outside.

The house sobs and shudders in the rain.

Across the screaming lake, the lights go out,

and then a second later ours do too.

The electricity escapes savage and free,

prising swift highways out of air, 

beautiful as a nuclear attack.

Winds wrestle the clouds like bitter siblings.

The sky across Canada chars.

I am the highest man in the city.

Not high

the way junkies are high, hopping

like tiny sparrows to their nest

of dank closes, public toilets, the park.

Not like the bankers

flooding streets at five with their suits, origami

with folds of aftershave, notes

too microscopic to see. Up here,

the city spreads out like a picnic blanket.

Trouble is brewing in parliament, the castle

a crumbling cake. I play God

interfering with the scrap of the building site,

its clanging dust. Men are ants

in a modern, restless constellation

of luminous jackets: I could squish one

without even hearing the cry.

Sun sets in a hiss of fleshy cloud.

Coming down

is swearing, coughing, fags

bitter in the air. Crush of wet coats.

Shuffling into a line to wait for a bus

that never arrives, and standing only

five and a half feet tall.