stress tests

You are administering a stress test
to the man who is raising the children
of last weekend's stab wound.

You are working nights
when they bring her in from outside
Dublin's with no heartbeat.

(A for Airway,
B for Breathing,
C for Compression)

You are working nights when she dies
after an hour of CPR.

(You have seen people come back
after 45 minutes. "They aren't the same,
but they come back.")

You are changing the subject;
I am not the same. We will come back
to this.

Times I Was Hit and Times I Was Not

On my way to work,
Down Preston Avenue,
Someone misses me at a 4 way stop,
He honks and his window is rolled down.
He looks at me,
Opens his mouth like he's yelling,
In perfect unison with the horn,
So he is blaring like a
Speechless machine.
On the gravel, I stand
For a moment,
And I am late for work.

Along Main Street in the winter,
My tires are gummy in ruts,
Slush like brown sugar
Dusts parked cars
And the holes where they used to be.
A man in a plumbing truck
Drafts cautiously behind me,
And when my tires spin frivolously,
Climbing out of the rut,
I fall in front of him,
On my back.
He gets out to ask if I
am ok.

A cab driver pulls out
In front of me on Dufferin,
Catcalls me in a skirt.

I run a red light,
And in momentum,
Graze the side of
A Hummer.
The alarm goes off.

Crossing University Drive,
U of S President Peter MacKinnon
Edges me off the road with his
side view mirror.

On 20th, a woman with a cigarette
Plays a game with me,
Closing me into the spaces
Between parked cars,
Only to slow down in front of me,
Wedging, closer until our
Hubcaps and petals are
A handshake.
I turn and she follows me
Until I pull off the road,
Walk the rest of the way home.

On Broadway a man is getting
A blowjob
While driving,
And he just doesn't see me.

On the way to Pike Lake,
I could faint on the shoulder,
And a stranger will carry me home.

and the award for most inappropriate goes to....

You want a story?

Get me an eightball of blow
and I'll tell you

a story.

inappropriate workplace conversations

Who?
A girl from work, once.

What?
A crowbar.
Sardines in the air vents.
Brass knuckles.

Where?
Bus stops and backseats.

How much?
If it's bigger than my cell phone, don't.

When?
If you can stop laughing long enough.

Places Where the Skin is Broken:

Between
Toes and under
The backs of knees.
I have hangnails for
Hangups.
If aging ex-hippies
take the dentists' drill to their foreheads,
Creating caverns like cochlea
In the central ridge of the crania,
They may open some third eye
By voluntary force.
I am just scratching
Mosquito bites.

reclaiming the hill

we are going to walk and re-walk
this hill in frayed sneakers

until our soles and fingerprints
mark the pavement leading down
to the condemned bridge

so that when i move away
and they knock it down

you will remember our hands
on sweating thermoses of beer
and each other

instead of the longboard accident.

You will remember the narrow shoulders
of the bridge, how once
we could walk all the way across.

Words There Are No Words For Yet

The feeling of expectancy
Of a stair at the top of the staircase
Or the bottom,
The tiny seizure of knees and ankles
And psychic disturbance that follows:
Imsjunction.

The swelling rise and fall of the bladder
On rollercoasters or
In love:
Vesiphoria.

Teeth tight in the front
Of the mouth,
Is a borrowed term,
With this extra meaning tacked on:
Equivocal.