Before the diesel wheeze and asphalt
rumble, before a miasma of butts (battlefield: satellite view),
before a grizzle of frying meat and bagpipes’ blare from some
opened window, before the ash
of car parts meets crusher dust (summer eats winter),
before a gloveless thumb, a rotting orange, a greasy list
(hamburger, carrots), and before a sock requiring
a zillion Tide-washings to resume life
(question, common as Tim’s
cups: why just one?),
before such urban wreckage—
(never mind a shady smell, cut grass and gas, small engines grazing Joni-style hissing lawns), on a path walled by rose-hung chain-link, this:
Like a hard candy sucked clear, Stop, it says,
Pick me up and I’ll save you, goes its evening-blue flare (daybreak pink
or sunset glow) best left for a signal-reader who knows
her stuff
—a blazing-trail commuter? a kid with training wheels?—
(red sky at night, yada yada, red sky in the morning) and takes
fair warning: whoa.
♦
Carol Bruneau is a novelist, essayist and reviewer who lives in Halifax. Her latest book is These Good Hands, based on the life of French sculptor Camille Claudel. She teaches writing at NSCAD University.
She can be found at www.carolbruneau.com
(photos by Carol Bruneau)
♦♦♦
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