Solstice poems because I sprained my ankle

Sandpipers

Birds scatter down the white 
beach like errant grains of sand
blown off the page.

Moon

We drank craft beers 
on a patio in industrial
Victoria, the rain stopping at
the umbrella, the dogs
curled under the benches, 
the Gorge a tongue of the Pacific
hanging out, over on
the other side of the lot
where they crush the cars
and the other side of the 
heaped recycle scrap
where they tried to remediate
the shoreline after centuries
of busted boats and 
leaking tanneries and 
a bike path swishes over shrivelling 
rail ties that reek like creosote 
in the wet and then weaves
past the heroin hippies in
the lush forest so beautiful
you can’t believe this could be
a world that needs numbing, 
at least not till you hang out here
for a while. 

We use our disposable income to
top up social capital to 
force our dreams to come true 
as hard as we possibly can, we
pare our bodies down to glands
and bone, we curl
our tongues around metal straws
and suck and say we

haven’t 

you know

seen orcas 

this year 

yet

we pretend the wind isn’t 
ruffling our pages so its hard to read that
our fingers aren’t turning white so it’s hard to feel
we dream about dissolving 
perfectly into the sky we
survived better than we deserve 
like cats slinking on a 
ledge above the streets
that will eventually feed 
us more than we’ll need and 
we drink down the rewards of 
our labours because despite 
the contortions of well-meaning
communities life is always better
a degree removed, and then
one more.