Parade of Storms

In the calm between one atmospheric river

and the next, I paused on the bridge

and watched a man string Christmas lights across his balcony.

Distance blurred detail, so all that was visible

in the mysterious vapour were armloads of sparkle

he hauled as if from the sea, a vast net of glitter

he looped over and under the rails, over

and under, golden orbs and silver spheres

spilling forth from his embrace—

There in the blue mist, drowned boats

sinking to the creek bottom, the rains fell

and kept falling like punishment.

This is the end times, we’d all agreed—

saturated earth crumbling, dislodging hillsides,

houses. Blighted harvests, bare store shelves,

cargo trains tumbled into crevasses.

Would the pipelines explode? Doomsday activists

sat cross-legged at intersections,

horses stampeded through soaked farmland,

numb faces on the news listed a litany of losses—

homes, livelihoods, generations of labour.

I kept watching. He was like a fisher

from a fairy tale, soon to catch the magic flounder

in his humble net, the one that could grant wishes—

Cursing, Flailing

The world is on the brink of nuclear war,

says a voice on the radio, near the border

between Oregon and California. Our first road trip

post-pandemic, and motel rooms groan with cold

even as plum blossoms line the freeway. In America

food mashes into sweet pablum

against the roofs of our mouths—

a stir of chemicals and enriched flour, pre-digested.

Ding Dongs shaped like hockey pucks, corn chips

pushed through an extruder. 99 cents for a cup

of soda swill, small or X-large, so I cradle

a bucket-sized container of pop in my lap,

docile as a doped baby. Thanks to COVID

every plastic item comes wrapped in an extra film

of plastic, and turd-coloured rooms reek

of hospital-grade disinfectant. Praise to plastic straws

instead of paper tubes that disintegrate

in carbonation, leaving mush to slurp up!

Praise to the gleam of plastic cutlery,

its utility and malleability, its future journey adrift

for decades through miraculous oceans!

We unwrap burgers the size of our heads

while parked beside a tent city, gnaw gritty patties,

lick sauce dispensed in measured dollops.

On a beach between San Francisco and Santa Cruz

I crawl into a lean-to built by a homeless man

who will reclaim it at sunset. Will bombs

find us here? Only the ocean’s painful roar, the sound

of a million creatures dying. It seems a crime

to walk in America, the few pedestrians

stumbling out of trailer parks and bars

scanning for trouble and cursing, flailing.  

The motel lobby sign says there’s a $100 fine

for using hair dye—it ruins the towels—

but everyone, the clerk says, wants to change

their identity. Young women pass me in the halls,

hoodies up, PJ bottoms flapping, slippers slapping.

I squat on a curb by the entrance—COVID stacked away

the lobby chairs—and guests ask, Ma’am, do you work here?