- © 2005 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
The cars outside scurry into parking holes:
an attendant administers tickets and takes money.
His gate goes up. Traffic breeds thick on the street.
Using paper bags for pillows, derelicts sleep in the square.
Townhouse roofs are worn from too much rain,
too much sun. An argument over money: Pay me then
and No, you stole it! A few joggers trot. Squads
of kids dispense their tortures. One pamphleteer
installs himself outside the hospital entrance
and is ignored. Sirens sound their Doppler calls;
pigeons swoop down on litter falling from pedestrians'
hands. A man wanders along the sidewalk; he looks lost.
This squat window is open, a perfect portal: no expanse,
just a small demesne, a city as broad as its enclosure.
I turn around, a man lies with the sheets drawn
to his neck; only the damaged godhead is visible. A face
that loomed in life recedes each day, too gaunt
for arguments. I turn away. Outside, fewer cars pass.
The parking lot empties. Vagrants stir. Half a moon
presides over grief as patch of cityscape.