Tonight I went to the grocery store for a steak

and on my way dropped the garbage in the garbage

compactor. It was still sunny. I wore shades on my head

and listened to Lizzo while trying to find the bean aisle,

strutted around Buy-Low like the can of cannellinis

were my birthright. Grabbed a cheap red blend

with a twist top, didn’t get carded. At home,

with the Burnaby skyline filling all my windows,

I put the popsicles in the freezer, salted the steak

and fed the dog a scoop of kibble. Up to the roof then,

18th-floor metropolitan panorama. There’s a garden

and a three-by-five-foot square of my own

possibilities. The carrots had popped up. The marigolds

lost their heads to lucky crows. I borrowed a watering can

from the communal storage box, filled it from a magic spout

in the ground, soaked my seeds. Back downstairs,

steak in the pan with butter and garlic. Chunky yams in the air

fryer. Beyoncé on the Google Home was in the mood

to fuck something up. Tossed arugula with lemon, oil,

parmesan. Watched White Noise while I ate,

that new Noah Baumbach, and giggled a lot, said things like

whaaaaaaat and so cool! Blood dripped down my chin. The light

left. After, I googled what it all meant—death,

capitalism, Steffie’s stuffed bunny—and inevitably

landed on this podcast clip of some porn stars singing

Manuel Ferrera’s praises. So right there, on the living room couch

with all those windows open, I watched him tenderly fuck

so many different kinds of women, and I touched myself

and came seven times, and I guess what I’ve done

tonight is as close to freedom as it gets.

Earlier today a student wrote in an email

you’re my favourite prof so maybe that’s enough.

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Image: Pedro Ribeiro Simões from Lisboa, Portugal, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons