I stand alone, looking into the storefront window of a Toronto downtown street and ask myself, “Who am I? Am I a person?” Most don’t see me as that. I am an obstacle, a speed bump on a time-starved lunch hour. My spot is between the CIBC bank and the Bay Street subway steps. When I’m moved from there, I make my way downhill to Queen and University, where at least eight more gather like pigeons in the park.

I see new and old faces, but it’s the familiar ones that get to me. Oh, I put on a brave face and sometimes even let my real face show; the sane one, but people give you more if they think you can’t help it, I learned that quickly. Act stupid, mumble and smile, there’s breakfast. It’s as simple and as hard as that.

You see I live in the inner city. I sleep in alleyways and on subway grates. I eat from dumpsters and shower in the rain. My clothes could stand up by themselves and my feet are as worn and leathered as an old shoe. I am a woman, or used to be, now, only a part of this city. I am something to be talked about by travellers returning home. I am a famous stranger with a forgettable face.

My life before is a fractured dream and its presence stings my senses. My voice is soft when listened to for I fear what I might say. I may have to defend my reason for living and I don’t really have one, only what might have been if the world were on my side. I don’t think I would know how to live a normal life, if there is such a thing.

I am thirty-nine years old. I was thirty-five the night baby Charlie was born; the same night my husband Jack drove the Dodge Caravan into the Niagara River. Little Sam got stuck in the car seat. Jack showed up at the hospital in an ambulance. Without my little Sam I was nothing. The booze woke me from my hollow world, but that led me here. Where they are now is just something I don’t want to know.    

This is as good a hell as any I suppose. My life is as it is and the world moves with or without me. Little would change if I were not here. My spot would still exist. I hope it got the care it deserves, for it is a good spot.

The smells of the city hover above, just out of reach. Smell is underrated. It propels me into unforeseen directions. I wander aimlessly towards such fantasies as fried onions and hot chestnuts or popcorn.

“Please sir, just a quarter, only a quarter and I won’t ask again tomorrow.”

But I will, for one day runs into the next, sometimes with no barrier between the two. Spring turns into summer, and summer turns into fall.

Winter is coming.


Lost in Life was first published in Bewildering Stories.  

Caution

   Better walk slow
Take heed where you pass
Loves going to find you
Take you in its grasp

Reel you in slow
And spit you out fast
All while you’re thinking
This one will last.

Caution was first published in the anthology New Classic Poems 

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Ever gently she does move

The wind behind sweeps up the gloom

Ahead the night does sparkle brightly

Creating shadows in darkness lightly

Now and then disguised as one

Who could not melt under the sun

Her spell will cast a long, long way

Through time and space

Through night and day

Until the one it’s aiming for 

Opens up the mystery door

Like an arrow to the heart

The magic flows through blood so dark

The time is short she gives the man

Condensed forever in her hand

And passes it so sweetly over

Under covers and in the clover

But now she’s gone

The door is closed

Just a dream

He must suppose

And though the feeling will thin with time

And life’s routines will dull the mind

His heart and soul will remember when

The mystery woman danced with him.

Northen Light was first published in the anthology New Classic Poems
A newer version can be seen on the ezine Bewildering Stories. 

                                                               MESSIAH RISING

I looked at the tattered hand written letter, the cursive script of another time. The words so precious and yet so secretive, it was all that remained of my family. I had sold my house in Bristol and disposed of all possessions. A loner for most of my life, I felt now somehow at peace with myself and at home here, on the moors, with only my solitary quest and my letter to guide me. All that I owned I carried.

To read a longer excerpt or to buy an ebook, CLICK HERE