Endless Inter-States

They go down to the expressways, baskets

In hand, they go down with rakes, shovels

And watering cans, they go down to pick

Beans and trim tomato plants, they go down

In wide-brimmed hats and boots, passing

By the glass-pickers, the Geiger counters, those

Guarding the toxic wastes. They go down

Remembering the glide of automobiles, the

Swelter of children in back seats, pinching, twitching,

Sand in their bathing suits, two-fours of Molson’s

In the trunk of the car. They go down, past

The sifters, the tunnellers, those who transport

Soil from deep in the earth, and are content

To have the day before them, are content to imagine

Futures they will inhabit, beautiful futures

Filled with unimagined species, new varieties of

Plant life, sustainable abundance,

An idea of sufficient that is global. Or,

Because cars now move on rails underground,

The elevated roads are covered in earth,

Vines drape around belts of green, snake

Through cities, overgrown and teeming

With grackles and rats’ nests, a wall

Of our own devising, and the night

Watchmen with their machine guns

Keeping humans, the intoxicated,

Out. I am sorry for this version, offer

You coffee, hot while there is still

Coffee this far north, while there is still news

To wake up to, and seasons

Vaguely reminiscent of seasons.

Web-toed she walks into the land, fins

Carving out river bottoms, each hesitation

A lakebed, each mid-afternoon nap, a plateau,

Quaint, at least that is my dream of her,

Big shouldered, out there daydreaming

The world into existence, pleasuring herself

With lines and pauses. How else? What is a lake

But a pause? People circling it with structures, dipping

In their poles? Once she thought she could pass by

Harmless. Scraping wet shale, her knees down in it, she

Tries to remember earth, that ground cover. She tries

To reattach things, but why? What if the world

Is all action? What if thought isn’t glue, but tearing?

She sits at the lake edge where the water never meets

Earth, never touches, not really, is always pulling

Itself on to the next.

Now she sits by her memory of meadow, forlorn, shoeless.

She could scoop PCBs from the Hudson, she is

Always picking up after someone. But what? What

Is the primary trope of this romp? Where her uterus

Was the smell of buckshot and tar, an old man chasing

Her with a shotgun across his range. Cow pies and

Hornets’ nests, gangly boys shooting cats with BB guns,

Boys summering from Calgary, trees hollowed out,

Hiding all manner of contraband goods. When she peers

In the knotted oak, classic movies run on

The hour, Scout on the dark bark, Mildred

Pierce with a squirrel tale wrap. Nature is over,

She concludes. Nature is what is caught, cellular,

Celluloid. She sticks a thumb in another tree, a

Brownstone, a small girl—her heart a thing locked.

It’s been so long since she felt hopeful. (Perhaps nature

Is childhood.) The morning after Chernobyl

Out there with tiny umbrellas. All those internal

Combustions. This is a country that has accepted death

As an industry, it is not news. She has been warned.

Her ratings sag. She scans her least apocalyptic

Self and sees mariners floating, Ben

Franklin penning daily axioms, glasses lifting

From the river bank, planked skirts on Front,

China-like through the industrious, thinking, traffic

Clogged city, its brick heavy with desire for good.

Memory of meadow, Dickinson an ice pick scratching

Wings in her brain: if you see her standing, if you move

Too quickly, if you locate the centre, if you have other

Opportunities, by all means if you have other opportunities.

Abondoned mine shafts on either side, those

Tight curves between Kaslo and New Denver,

Hairpin at glacial creek, splash of red

Bellies muscling, streaming up, we see them

From the open window. Or once did. Even here?

Salmon stocks diminish, mammals dying off.

No, he said, not in your lifetime. Vertical;

Traces where the charge went off,

Ruggedness is your only defence, he

Said, be difficult to cultivate, navigate. Offer

No hint of paradise, no whiff of

Golf course. Uninhabitability your only

Recourse. Lashed, that moment, prolonged

Leaving, her father on the roadside

Dreaming his world fitting in some place,

Without being reigned in, her father’s fathers

Throwing rocks down on Hannibal,

Straddling the last large elm in the valley,

Knowing where and how to lay the charge, or

Sucking shrapnel from an open wound,

The lambs all around, bleating.

Which liftetime? Beyond what brawn? Who

Knew where the road would take us?

Neat, neat, the rows of apple trees

There in the valley, red summers, the heat

Of Quebecois pickers, VWs in a circle,

Firepit and strum. Men from Thetford

Mines dreaming peaches, dreaming

Clean soil. Hour upon hour the self

Becomes less aware of the self.

Beautiful, beautiful, the centre line, the road,

This power station and control tower, these

Weigh scales, these curves, that mountain

Goat, those cut lines, these rail lines, that

Canyon, the Fraser, the Thompson,

The old highways hyphenating

Sagebrush, dead-ending on chain

Link, old cars collecting like bugs

On the roadside, overturned, curled, astute,

Memory of the Overlanders,

Optimism, headlong into

Hell’s Gate. Churn of now,

The sound barriers, the steering

Wheel, the gas pedal, the gearshift,

The dice dangling, fuzzy,

Teal, dual ashtrays, AM radio

Tuned to CBC, no draft, six cylinders,

The gas tank, the gearshift, easing

Into the sweet spot behind

The semi, flying through Roger’s

Pass; the snowplow, the Park

Pass, sun on mud flap, the rest stop

Rock slides, glint of snow, the runaway

Lanes, the grades steep as skyscrapers,

The road cutting through cities,

Slicing towns, dividing parks,

The road over lakes, under rivers,

The road right through a redwood,

Driving on top of cities, all eyes

On the DVD screen,

All minds on the cellphone,

The safari not around, but inside

Us: that which fuels.

No matter, the slither of pavement is endless,

Today the rain, a gold standard, all the

Earmarks of, never mind, all is well, all

Is well, and who doesn’t want to hear that?

She gets on her scooter and roars, she gets

On her skateboard and feels the air under

Foot, she shakes out her hair, thinking of California,

Thinking of allergies, thinking of the wreck

Of place: who ever promised more? The iris

With its feigned restraint, the daring tuba,

The horn of shoe, utilitarian, delicate. Such

Useful domesticity, such hopeful electronics.

Once she disappeared by turning sideways.

Now she finds it difficult to reappear. She lifts

The sediment of time to her palm, feels it sift

Between her fingers: bone, bits of event. Aren’t

We all a bit fluish this century? Nothing bearing any

Mark of otherwise. No prescript, nothing a bit of hope

Won’t cure. Such a churn of optimism:

That which consecrates will not kill. Maybe New York?

She fits herself on an easterly course: been done,

Been done, but what better than the well-trodden

Path? Beautiful, beautiful, the seams

Of the rich, their folded linens,

Their soft bags of money. If it ain’t broke

Don’t fix, if it ain’t resistant, don’t

Wince, if it fits like a boot, then boot it.

And so she does.

Source: Expressway (Coach House Press, 2009)