The Planner

You are forever planning; making lists. 

You ask for dinner ideas over coffee, 

or when we lay in bed.

I study the indent of your cheek,

the white-grey speckle of your jaw, 

the impossible beauty of whiskers and skin, 

tanned even in winter. You add ingredients to the list.

You want the answers, and I

have no use for cooking, if I can't also catch your eyes, 

and soften them,

wrap my whole self around you from behind,

drink wine at the table and watch

as you move across the confines of the kitchen

I don't know how

you can listen to a song and not cry,

or watch me buckle under the pressure of emotion

when grief rises up into the belly of the room,

and still stay so focused.

As if this was always part of the plan.

Coming Home

There is nothing like it.

The warm relief of coming home

in spring. The stillness 

of late afternoon; the living room

the colour of the almost-setting sun.

I live for the quiet greeting

of empty rooms and open windows. 

Invitations of birdsong and light.

And when the rain comes,

and I am behind these walls,

I will welcome the thunder

like it is the only god I know.

I Decided to Leave For Montreal in January

It seemed like a good idea at the time,

to go back.

I wanted to be taken back,

taken in,

her dressed-up arms again.

I wanted apologies,

flowers, 

forgiveness,

to lay down forgiveness 

like a rose

To be foolish

blind, drunk,

on wine, on music,

on porches, in parks...the parks.

I wanted, to hear my city say

I love you, I love you, I love you too

I love you most of all.

I still dream about her, 

Montreal.

The winding, iron streets 

I'm searching for my old apartment at night

to find, 

she's not mine anymore at all.

She's not there anymore

at all.

I don't dream of January.

The ink-black nights caked with snow-paved roads,

trudging over that bridge for miles,

Pulling suitcase from bus to train to metro, 

to him.

Or the dirty bachelor apartment,

the lonely mattress on the floor

the lonely, take-your-breath away lonely,

the home-sick

lonely.

Or the drive home.

I don't dream of running out of rent,

quickly packing the car,

or how she knew to come during a snow storm in May 

to get me. Or how when we reached Ontario,

the clouds suddenly parted,

and out came the sun.