A coal dust blackwinged morning, an assassin of crows caw cawing outside my parapet, balustrade, Martello Tower, Molly’s bloomers twilled round collar and shank, and me, a fugue in x-minor, the volcano, Babel(ed) into submission, a yardstick without a measure. I am somewhere, not here not there, somewhere in Montreal eating supplicant’s biscuits and too-sweet wine, a transubstantial reification, replete with hogsheads, melbas and corn whiskey. I am a specter, a ghostbody, a kidney stone Braille with quillwort and tungsten, a cooper’s awl, a firkin without a bunghole or stopper. I am a foolscap, a tam-o-shanter, a wooly toque with a Hob’s face encircled in a red nimbus, a Hockley stick flat to the mouth, lips prepuce and bloodied. I am here, somewhere here, where here is, is a mystery to me.
