At the carrefours, signs and avenues
Usher us to divergent destinations.
We trace thoughts through clouds,
Neuronal bridges tethering
Roads. Branching out deltas
Of serpentine labyrinth loops
In the expanding metropolis.
In toxic sub-zero dawn
Traffic exhales
Nauseous exhaust.
Night shuts its wings
And the sun, ethereal egg
To the east, fries its way west
Over easy, on this town awakening
Like every other town in the world,
Where this morning, we are reborn
To ourselves, to our routines of work
And family obligations,
Huddled in our parkas, with our coffees,
Our cigarettes, car radios and breakfasts on the go.
Revamped into one more time slot.
This day we name and carve with our rituals
Born again to adaptation. We are words
Tumbling onto a new page
Of some half-written book. We coalesce
Some sort of meaning from the totality
Of our days, the whorl of them
Coiling into an ever strengthening helix
Surviving winds and blunt force
On this tangible terrain.
The page is blank
And seems benign
With all the tabs open
To a thousand yesterdays.
The memory of them intruding pop-ups
Of non-continuous text claiming attention,
Stitching upon time’s arrow past to present.
Continuity to future me on an invisible trajectory
Through places, faces, events, my life, one story
I weave of the years, these words.
Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews is the author of two non-fiction books and five collections of poetry. Her poem “Ghost” received first prize in Toronto’s Big Pond Rumours Journal Contest. She lives, teaches and writes in Oakville, Ontario.
“Feux Rouges” was a finalist in the inaugural Accenti Poetry Contest in 2021.
For details on next year’s contest, click here.
