Payphone, College and Ossington II

Payphone, College and Ossington

Every time she has a new wound: first,
the line was nearly severed like a tendon,
from a mean yank or wild lasso swing.
Then her neck was broken, hanging
together by the multicoloured insides,
keeping the connection intact – just barely.
The next day somebody had wrapped
it up neat with black stick tape, so if you
weren’t looking you could hardly notice,
or say it was a clumsiness, a slip. And
yesterday, a bandage beige like a
bonnet wound round her head, fresh.

Bench, Trinity Bellwoods Park

Seated safely back from the precipice he

blessed me with the universal sign of the

cross with the hush of his mother tongue

Seated safely back from the precipice he

cursed me with the universal sign of the

cross with the hush of his mother tongue

Payphone, College and Ossington

the cut was between the ear and the mouth

triaged with black electrical tape

reminded me of hockey sticks but

you couldn’t see the scars

Bench, New Mexico

“a bench painted this colour gazes out where no one would particularly care to look.”

-Roo Borson, Personal History

Payphone, Dundas and Indian Grove

Humdrum

tone deaf evening

spit-scuffed recipient of receiver beating

hangs greasy hair head in hands

stares at basketball shorts and sighs.

Bench, Carr Street Parkette

Tree bark sans brassiere sags under August offspring, eyes slatted wood fence with suspicion.

Pool chants of children mock measured repetition of painted brick, peeling in humiliation.

Sidewalk won’t admit the proudest edge has been lost under frowsy green grass.

Cabbage butterfly lonely longs for gillyflower hip flask.

And if stream of garden hose aspires to easy flow of clouds in grace-and-favour sky,

repainted bench plank will deride candy-pink 416 scrawl and carved KODY WOS heRe of her neighbours.

Still, cool green metal of bench arms envies lighter complexion of frowsy green grass.

Lustrine asphalt shrugs out of time, back into the curve of the earth.

Payphone, Dundas and Markham

want to talk with a twang, take your

edges off all y’all like soft leather

dead ahs drag open over your tongue

or stops explode like a jump in between cypress knees

a smooth rivah, this talk

live sounds in your nose like water

Thanks to Torontoist for the inspiration

Payphone, College and Augusta

We so pro. We
talk slow. We

rent hooks. We
catch looks. We

glow yellow. We
throw hello. We

call collect. We
aren’t gone yet.

after Gwendolyn Brooks

Payphone, Dundas and Pacific

HELLO

my name is

red ninja alien tagbox lolly

the most fun you can have for twenty bucks

for twenty-five cents

we keep it real around here, ma

strictly indie

Bench, Columbus Parkette

Sleep today; today is sleeping.
Kids are playing.

Sleep today; flags are
waving. Opens are closing.

Sleep today sun
is leaking park is edging.

Columbus is crying, the natives are
hiding.

Behind walls an all-night poker game is all-
day playing; the girls are long-skirt tambourine
dancing.

Sleep today. Dangers are safe-ing.
Grass is growing.

Moment is waiting, cracks
are sparkling.