Sunday, February 21, 2016

Lake fill (poem)



1.

Schooner, vessel. Unwrap
decades of accumulation: wet clay,

rhyme, diversion.

Long crossed-out: this airless tomb
of tempered wood. Exhumed,

bare-skin and bone,
a glossary, exposed claw-damp

begins to oxidize.


2.

Scalpel-strips

of layers, waterfront. A catalogued
dementia: two

centuries of sleep. Padded earth
they set for salvage, restitution,

new foundations: rail
of Grand Trunk.


3.

Repurposed, raised

, what hastens speed: invention.
Intact beams are sharpened, shift

to upkeep Historic Fort York.
Wood

of equal vintage, timber,

tender. Walks upon, erodes. The faintest tinge
of slow.


4.

Erasure: drowning, dry land. Double-masted,
fifty foot of sail-set; driven,

run aground. Had weathered

every storm. So purposeful:
mid-century, stone-sunk, reshaped

as scaffolding

for Queens Wharf. Set
your body down.


5.

Oh how she scoons,

they would have said.

The lake shrinks slowly,
swells.






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