The back of an ambulance feels less important than it is. It is a constant moving serenity with the siren going distant but constant. I close my eyes because I’m blacking out anyway. I am not in control. I am passive: rolled around through halls and into cars and out of them, given shots, given the shakes, made drowsy, shot through with side effects. Time rolls away and then stops, wheeled into the ambulance ward. I feel comfortable until they tell me I can leave.

Another attempt made a few days ago, also the first real thing I’ve written since school got out:

Ambulance Haiku
fading in and out
sirens yell, the ground speeds by
faces float above

Please come out if you’re in Montreal this weekend. I’ll be reading a few poems (guess what one of them will be), as will a lot of talented budding poets.

Dollarama only has atomic pink rabbit-shaped Peeps,
the kind that look soft but will have stale edges
by Easter Monday.
But they also have brooms, sold in three parts:
handle, brush, and dustpan,
for easy assembly by college students
who have never owned a broom before,
but are threatened by dust
in their dormitory corners.
I tie the plastic Dollarama bag
to my new broom handle
and sling it over one shoulder,
ready to hop a train.

Outside Jean Coutu, a boy and a girl say goodbye, or hello.
They hold both hands, outside and mittenless for the first time.
I remember a fourth kiss on a sunny day,
like a chocolate egg, tender and melting.
I smile for them, but wish for my love:
his grass-soft hair, sunny eyes, two lips around an egg.
He’s looking for something larger,
also hidden, but more bitter than sweet.
I wish I could follow him around with a Ziploc bag in hand,
searching under couch cushions and behind chair legs,
but I know it’s more satisfying to search alone.

My mother gave inscrutable hints
about where to find the eggs she hid.
I find them in the pharmacy:
250-gram yellow mesh bags of
gold, green, pink, purple, and blue,
printed with silver flowers that look like eyelashes or stars.
I buy two bags and bring them back to my college dorm.

In the evening, I hide the eggs.
I divide them into equal groups
and place them on ledges and windowsills.
My love, atomic pink, tender and melting,
isn’t there to find them;
but we were getting stale around the edges,
dusty in our corners,
and he had to hop a train.
He told me that when he comes back, he will start again.
He will be rid of the last brown slush piles
and be clean as spring.

I listen to birds’ inscrutable song.
I wish on sand the dustpan can’t pick up.
I unwrap one green chocolate egg,
printed with silver stars like flowers.

Bring me back to when you still had your sight.
Time took your vision, but you are still strong.
Look through the darkness to memory light.

Your daughter struggles, but you do not fight;
You remain content. You’ve battled too long.
Bring me back to when you still had your sight.

I wanted to know stories of your plight,
But you said your books would pass them along.
Look through the darkness to memory light.

You will not see gardens in May sunlight,
And yet still you sing. Your voice and your song
Bring me back to when you still had your sight.

When you die your body will burn to white,
And only your image will be passed on.
Look through the darkness to memory light.

Do not go silent into that good night—
I will tell your stories when you are gone.
Bring me back to when you still had your sight.
Look through the darkness to memory light.

give me some sugar, baby

as if we drunk remember
a fire did eat himself
you almost embrace champagne
thee aroma is not sensual
top of reason

this could boil over

we
caress from the clutch &
soak between two rivers

worship woman
celebrate tonight
heart hand chest
this could boil over

dance his secret world

flame, cuddle, blaze

every star
an ocean
each delicious morning
felt a gift

let’s run away beautiful

He builds poems in his basement,
made from pages and pressure and ink:
fist-sized haikus that crawl slowly,
clusters of couplets with flapping sails,
long-legged villanelles kicking in waves.
(He’s working his way up to an epic.)
He practices walking them back and forth,
powered by his little puffs of breath.
One day they will live on their own,
walking away from criticism and
dodging misinterpretation.
For now, they need his help.

Los Angeles
I wanted to go out,
to cruise down Sunset with the top of your car down,
past silicone shopping malls and mannequin girls,
waving my feet in gold mules out the window.

I wanted to go to the beach
and watch the surfers and the sunbathers,
slice into the salty water
and eat melon on the boardwalk.

I wanted to slam with punks and college kids,
wearing our leather jackets and striped shirts,
drink a bit too much cheap beer at the bar,
get burritos so we could fall asleep.

But you were dreaming of going home again,
to an island built up like a fortress,
stacked up and nervous,
where you can’t even see the water.

You couldn’t remember Gene Kelly’s feet in cement.
You forgot about parrots perched in jacaranda trees.
You just saw the smog and the money,
zombie movie stars under our feet,
gangsters done up like blue and red clowns,
trees burning down in the Santa Ana winds.

I wanted you to stay here
in a city of canyons and palm trees,
open roads and secret alleyways,
mirrored pools and sunsets and happy endings.
You just smiled bittersweet and said
you didn’t believe in angels.

New assignment: take a poem that involves a person other than the speaker and write a poem about the same event from the other person’s perspective.

Los Angeles
Emily, I wish you would come back to me.
Leave the Pacific Ocean,
wash the salt out of your eyelashes.
Let me wrap the Hudson River
around your bare, tanned arms.

This city can only poison you with
oleander and silicone,
smog and Crip cocaine.
And you know, they lied to you, Emily,
because none of the feathers on the beach
belong to any angels.

But Manhattan doesn’t play pretend;
it knows the rain as well as the sun.
You’d love it there, Emily:
the snow and the subway,
Chinatown and Central Park,
three-chord Bowery sonatas.

So close the picture book, Emily;
you know angels don’t really exist,
except for the statues in Forest Lawn Cemetery
for the ones who couldn’t survive.
Leave the canyons of failed dreams,
chemical sunsets and acid blue pools.
You’ll only suffocate, Emily.
Come back to me.