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This City Isn't Home

Jacob Sandler

Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog
tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew,
before we were loved there,
the places left fallow when we鈥檙e born.
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听"Last Night鈥檚 Moon" 鈥� Anne Michaels

I walked with you last night
down streets lit electric amber,听
lights fossilizing branches, skeletal
and arthritic with winter.
Our voices swallowed so close
to lips, no wind barked or dog
whispered, just the scraping of steps
as we drifted from sidewalk to sylvan trail,
under chainlink cut-and-folded, over fallen rotten log,
Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog.

We moved through a world caught听
in tableau, walls of moisture moving
with us, containing conversation,
defeating resonance, destroying echo.听
You ask if I would ever live here
after university. I say no, you say no too.
Young, transient, we detect the subtle
unwelcomings of this city, we have no heritage
here and the knowledge that our noses aren鈥檛 blue
tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew.

But corners became conscious to a sense of stranger:
famous stereotypical friendliness faded with the end
of summer, our first fall. Now our second winter
and below the surface of curiosity: 鈥淲here are you from?鈥�
the constant reminder, not from around here.听
This city clings to its generations, aware
always of its roots. I miss the alienation
of a larger urbanity, the style, the speed. This city
is too small, like home was small, was nowhere,
before we were loved there.

From here, where we will go is uncertain,
Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal:
ideas that fog absorbs until we are left with
footsteps and the hovering lights on the street
ahead. The windows of old south-end houses
look warm as we climb over the stonewall 鈥� surface worn
smooth 鈥� onto sidewalk. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot I love
about this place鈥� you say suddenly, 鈥淚 just wouldn鈥檛 ever belong
here.鈥� I agree. One day we鈥檒l find home, plant and adorn
the places left fallow when we鈥檙e born.

听