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Hastings–Sunrise

2015

all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, info@accesscopyright.ca.

Nightwood Editions

P.O. Box 1779

Gibsons, BC V0N 1V0

Canada

www.nightwoodeditions.com

typography & cover design: Carleton Wilson

Cover image: Bren Simmers

Nightwood Editions acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publisher’s Tax Credit.

This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.

Printed and bound in Canada.

library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

Simmers, Bren, 1976-, author

Hastings–Sunrise / Bren Simmers.

Poems.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-88971-310-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-88971-049-8 (html).

1. Vancouver (B.C.)--Poetry. I. Title.

PS8637.I47H38 2015 C811'.6 C2015-901126-4

C2015-901127-2

Table of Contents

21 × 13 blocks

Not to scale

Petals strung like popcorn

March 21

Trees fill in their dance cards

April 7

Crows karaoke with the alarm

April 19

Scouting alleys for lilacs

May 7

Open windows

May 25

Landscape formed by bright awnings:

Hong Hong Bakery, Pies 2 for $7,

Keys Cut Here. On Mr. Donair’s spit,

the earth rotates. Papal smoke emits

from Polonia Sausage, semis shunt

downtown, second-growth steel glints

in the distance. This two-storey strip,

fat quarter of blocks still a livable scale

in a city where cranes hoist the skyline

toward Shangri-La.

Learning new streets on foot,

how long to grow routes, wear paths

from green grocer to deli, dim sum to tailor.

Beyond address, habit, what makes

home? Surely not the sour waft

of rendered chicken, nor the caged budgies

we watch waiting for a #14. People

who perch at our perimeters define

our edges. At work, I record

when the tree swallows return, the first

salmonberry pickpocketed by temperature.

From a third-storey apartment, park

uniform shucked, I survey shipyards,

the North Shore. Find the rhythms

of street trees, swing sets, glimpse

a larger pattern—the phenology of

panhandlers, brunch crowds, for sale

signs, my life reflected in what

I choose to record.

238 N. Kamloops—

Tyvek-wrapped,

I covet you already,

your bay windows,

west-facing porch.

Weekly, I’ve tracked

your growth from concrete

footings to rising frame.

Modest shack, laneway

house big enough for

my love, our cat. A piano,

a garden, a window desk—

all that I imagine from behind

the rented metal fence.

Better yet, my love can

compose sonatas next door,

a laundry line to pulley notes

across. Frida had a bridge,

Georgia had Ghost Ranch.

Virginia, you understand,

I dream of four walls.

A spinning top from one spring to the next.

Equinox, Easter, the calendar advances

a row of red X s, halts for circled

weddings, funerals, births.

Hopscotch between sticky notes:

laundry, cat litter, write vows.

Growing up, the chime of a grandfather clock

struck the hour. My father swore

it sped up as he got older.

Less time to do more. The pendulum’s O

swings back and forth, a constant pulse.

Looking for a way out of my busy life,

what if I started looking for a way in?

Doesn’t take much to reclaim a corner

from Slurpee cups and cigarette butts.

A shortcut transformed into a mini-park

with a bench, a few flowering shrubs,

a scraggly garden of cast-off

hostas, divided irises,

remnants welcome,

even the parts of myself

I cover up or reject.

Quick to anger, despair.

A friend’s letter reminds,

It is your darkness that gives

you your shine.

Ten years on Vancouver Island.

I couldn’t bear one more Garry oak cut

down for a Costco, one more mountainside

bulldozed into naked cul-de-sacs.

I returned to a city already ruined

and found people building

raised beds on boulevards,

growing roots, pushing back.

Penned on scrap cardboard:

Please don’t steal the plants.

Dawn’s metallic drum roll recalls

that single bed we once shared.

Blinds left open to watch the sky

turn scarlet, colour of closed eyes.

Waking to the roller-coaster flight

of woodpeckers. First kisses.

A pair of red-shafted flickers

lapping ants with sticky tongues.

Four, five hours rest, before my love rose

to sketch songs on the loaned Wurlitzer.

Now, we’re often too tired,

blackout curtains block street lights

but not sirens and foghorns.

When I lay my head on his chest,

prelude to sheet-stealing and sleep

positions a to z in our double bed,

it’s those woodpeckers I hear

inside his ribs, drumming.

Metal handle even with his shoulders, the boy

heaves forward. The goliath rears up

and chomps down,

ragged whitecaps of shorn and long grass

in its wake. The boy’s father shouts

instructions over the din. I wish I had

someone to tell me never mow

barefoot. Eat your vegetables.

Take the long view in marriage,

this argument won’t matter in ten years.

Watching the hand-off from father to son—

what will I pass on? Childless

by choice, who will I watch

from the window?

As his mother worries the glass

with a cloth, as the boy pushes

a swath into the future, bright yellow

dandelions flare

under the whirling blade.

Judged on curb appeal, which exterior fits

ours? On after-dinner walks pretend

we own: pick your favourite house on this block,

the white-shuttered cottage or shoe-worn

Edwardian porch. Through architectural tropes

we test differences. But what of the interiors,

the back lanes where the real living happens?

Our routines don’t align without effort.

I crave quiet into afternoons; my love plays

double bass in our one-bedroom. All

the negotiations over headphones, time alone.

He loves the cottage, its small footprint,

says we don’t need much. True.

I still covet a fireplace, a hammock,

doors we can close. Night after night

these questions act as cardinal points

at the crossroads.

Local mascots, the wooden mannequins

in front of Laughing Bean Coffee

change their positions daily:

foxtrot, karate chop, strut Canucks

jerseys on game nights, high-five

commuters who slow to read placards:

his Freshly Baked and hers

I love his hot muffins.

Milk steaming at espresso machines,

the barista asks the next in line,

What’ll it be today, Henry?

A simple question triggers

envy. To be known, a regular

drinking chai and playing Scrabble

with my love, to let down

my guard long enough

to be seen, called out

of anonymity.

Night of nesting dolls,

many layers held

inside this one:

cocktails on the balcony,

supper at eight, the after-

dinner doubles games,

while kids pump legs

on swing sets.

At sundown, an old man

shuffles three times

around the park. Nightly,

I’ve started to look for

his cross-country gait,

tan paperboy cap,

started to call him ours.

Then falls the deep blue

scrim and the few

stars we can spot

amid shipyard cranes

and lights on Grouse.

So brief,

the smallest doll

is sleep.

Map of Neighbourhood Swings

x tree swings

o swing sets

19 × 10 blocks

Not to scale

When public space grows scarce,

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