The Untitled Series no. 64

I told you I stopped looking at the clouds that way,

cause it caused too much laughter, 
But those golden clouds,

over flat drumlins,

still look like mountains when I wish I was in a home not seen beyond funeral gatherings, and tired highways. 



I still imagine us driving up the grey and the blue,

onto that peninsula I tell people I’ve seen. 
But that French family doesn’t know my name,

my eastern baptism happened in a dodge caravan on the way to another funeral dance,

not in a church that I was told Grandpapa built.



I can keep my lies,

and keep my fantasies in that dusky Ontario skyline of early June,

sure,

I know the moon will push those mountains in to the imagined oceans, but I’ll grant that tonight.



These lakes always look bigger when I cross my eyes, and those mountains don’t have their softening lines and airy silhouettes when I squint. 



Papa always sang about a landslide when he thought I didn’t hear him, when he was recovering from Mama, but all I heard about was those clouds.

The rocky hills unknown. 



Those cloudy mountains are closer now, but the fields I’ve seen for the last few decades are calling me to stay magnetized somewhere my blood has never been.

My accent pins me to a language my bones still don’t understand, and my God keeps me under those loyal mountains, beside these false seas.



The spring time dust is still clinging to me, and my dear Ontario, it’s time to say goodbye,

and,

since we never said hello, I don’t imagine you’ll notice I’m gone. 



Old girl,

your mountains are shrinking, behind the nuclear plants, car dealerships, and behind our shared secrets,

sisters from adoption, and sinners by omission. 



I’ll stop looking at your skylines this way now,

you aren’t your neighbours,

and I’m not sure I’ve ever met mine.