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.