This spring made winter an insulting opening offer, now the passing lane
is getter harder to negotiate, thawing out and icing up again.
Past the Mint, where a circle of provincial flags are flagging in the front yard,
tired of trying to make us think that it hasn't always been so hard.
The sky looks seasick on the boxcar sway,
where the Atlantic and Pacific are the very same far away.
So the sun pulls me out a bit and lets me go, and I'm a vacuum power cord
in the back of that van full of kids cleaning carpets for the Lord,
and I make a little list of sounds I've found have comforted us in the past:
the roar of the rumble strips, and the Mennonite metre of the flood forecast,
or how the wind strums on those signs that say
the Atlantic and Pacific are the very same far away.
Steer this boat around the snow plow spray
while the Atlantic and Pacific are the very same far away.