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it’s 2006,
right after my surgery
lest anyone ever lets me forget;
poor me, poor me, poor me…

i’m staying in a RMCH-like for
horny seniors & teenagers alike,
and right outside my bedroom window
is a double-wide trashcan transients treat like an idol –
big enough to catch a flying fugitive Keanu:

i’m up late at night writing over the phone with a friend
whilst friends of the garbagepeople do their job for them.
bio-waste probably didn’t go in there –
one hopes –
but i can’t imagine it was loaded with lacquerware
when 90% of the co-tenants were lucky enough
to be off of the street themselves –
with library access to a fax machine to sign up for MSP –
to die affordably
and at their own pace within the year.
at least i could say that my mother was there.

now it is the hard, cold future
of 2023:
there is no free parking on the street
of the residential body
where my wife & i look after a furry family familiar
for two weeks.

in our one five-by-five cluster alone
they’ve replaced all the
single-family bungalows
that already featured nice fenced yards for doges
with three, four storey mansions with lane-homes.
everyone has a car and there aren’t enough spots
because her nephew owns 16 different vehicles
that don’t all fit in his 2-car garage.
my wife & i fight with a Fiat over the zone right out front
because the neighbours also have tenants living below & above
and the dog won’t leave me alone while i finish my thought;
nice pets are not enough –
time to exhaust her by taking her around the block…

at the top of the hill there was a Russian eatery
in which the building it stood is a fixture of the community
even if it had the only available parking
because it never seemed like anyone was ever there eating –
the fact it was open before what’s happening in Ukraine
notwithstanding.
it’s kind of sad to see it now shut
regardless of the West’s penchant for frozen sushki & borscht,
but the structure survived and a Korean joint took over
a couple years after the one down the way did,

or the other one further on down the lane,
a few blocks away from ANOTHER in the same region –
forget Ukraine:
Vancouver is a veritable fried-chicken-and-cheese campaign!
there’s a dirty middle-aged couple that stand out like a sore thumb
now walking in our direction,
and the pup acquiesces to a new hooman connection:

“i didn’t smoke your drugs, ya dum cunt!“
“fuck you! who else knew
the nug was wrapped in foil, huh? now
get out of my life you pestilent bug!”
“why don’t you go back to the library
and finish that vampire love story you’re writing?”
no no no, we’re going to avoid that
with the help of this handy pedestrian crossing…

it’s not fast enough.
i guess we’re jaywalking…

the dog takes a dump on the grass, now she’s panting:
she’s pulling me towards some other dog’s log
laying innocently on the path where we’re walking.
“no eating!”
i think about how KD handled it on the “Continental” show
that her mammalian careparents are watching:
that would certainly be a nice surprise for Mr. or Mrs. Fiat
on an icy morning –
Fiat-person.
too bad it’s raining

and all the cameras on everybody’s porch
would catch 16 different angles of what i was doing.

//wd 10.17.2023

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