##.see my house, its angled street,east, north, west, south,southeast, northwest, there areno parking placeshere
##.from New York City along endlesslines of shimmering poplarspounding on doors six am Customs yellingQuite all right, we've seen naked people before!
##.noble trees, oak, maple,Maytime's chestnut in its candlesgingko, elm and ashstand in their shade lace atthe height of June
##.streets, fir-trimmed, display theirwrought-iron armaturesnaked they are so thick you cannotsee through them thetowers of pleated gold and seagreen glassonly the CN Tower (a latecomer) risescloudward & the Bank of Commerce(tallest building in the British Empire, 1931)stands humbled
##.furnished with the bust ofSibelius in black granitethe wind sings his song
##.whether the wind is harsh or gentleUncle Max liesamong his three wivesBébé, Didi and Claudette
##.a crocodile of children trailtheir teacher to watch Mitch Hepburnbald spot & waving armsharangue his Legislature
##.roars in his narrow pool, his furstained yellow from citysmoke and filthy water
##.sign of ten thousand bulbsblooms in a white budflares into petals and green leavesfades and grows again
##.52 Kingston Rd in 1932I watch the sun go downover the wall of Woodbine Racetracktrailing firelined cloudsand feel the glory of the ineffable-- real or a dream?
##.eight years old and happily-hoppitingaround the ancient stout cane-totteringlady crowned in a Queen Mary hatthinking (this is God's truth) I bet she wishesshe was a carefree little child like me
##.an Edward Hopper light but upstairsover the furrier shop my grandfather'sYiddish tells my father's English the storyof the farmer and Czar I readlast week in Aesop about thefisherman and the Emperor
##.(it's eighth grade now) three monthsbefore that War with boys who'll die in it:the summer window's openthere is a world out there, and it cries:strawberry ripe!strawberry ripe!
##.and bobsleds ran longside the Dirty Donnow rivers of cars run with cleanbright-eye lights. I look crossyearsoff Broadview to 9 Tennis Creswhere B15's lamplit. Hello, child!
##.
##.shorts dances down the street shadow-boxing while his dog yips around him
##.gurgling blond babylaugh and talk on a park bench
##.talking to himselfin sign language
##.
##.with 2 other guys,the cabbie saysI just stood there watching them, I couldn'tbelieve it
##.falls into step with us, says: howdy ma'am, sir
##.pressing a woman who has stolen a hat --its tag dangles -- pushing it in her facetwo helmetedpolice converge on her terror
##.launches into the Yiddish Art TheaterDrama of his battle over the Hydro billI cool him down with english
##.fur-rimmed shtreimlach, waving banners, bearingflares and torches to greet the Rebbehpolice cars lead and followit's kind of different, the cop admits
##.I put my head out of the window and see:down my street where the young home-steaders have grown old or diedand their hopscotch children skipped offa brass band thumping oompah-tubas &twirling majorettesI think: I've got to get out of the suburbs
##.merchandizing ideographs and blinkingneon diacritical markssell dim sum & bok choy whereonce the rag trades sewed their sequined dressesCome on, I'll outfit you from top to bottomcousin Hymie said
##.at the Monte Carlo Restaurantfirst time out after the operationthe waiter stares at the bones and saysYou sure know how to eat a chicken
##.Road shadowed and eerie in curlicuedgables was where bad-temperedProfessor Wadson lived, redfaced, sweet-wived, a drinker of fine whiskey, butwhere I live now at Lonsdale's other endand watch the red moon rise I can't seeWadson's house (he was young once, hisphoto said, and handsome in Navy blues)he's dead & gone now, & his whiskey all drunk up
##.almost truly north to Hudson's Bay, butstriding parallel beyond his classy mistress AvenueRoad, it's Bathurst that's Street of Life, she'sthe farshlepta wife who guardsour spring and winter rituals, birth & deathhospital, church and synagogue, she's a
##.out of Toronto Harbour, no Venus eitheramong the boating not quite yachting clubsusing a swath of iron bridge to cross thebraided tracks of the railways yards pastfactories and warehouses, pauses
##.the Hospital I was born in: there's mymother-in-law Jenny Bardikoff: Poison andgarbage they give you here in little round pills!Better than the food! cries proper Mrs ScrimgeourWhat a life we're living, Jenny!cracking each other up joking to death
##.His lights are shining!How we admire his sign's designingwith cheerful face he sells us trinkets & theatricsand ever en famille in lamplit eateriesfor modest sums we eat his steaks his peas,his mashed potatoeswith not bad winesand crusty waitersSo sparkle on at Bloor & Bathurst brightly!We love you always, Ed! And not just lightly
##.is homeliness of ailanthus, gingkos and red brickswrapped in trellised rose-bines, ahologram chip of an old city's whole
##.at Eglinton, quietly, this oneand I think: Manya? I'd met herlong ago in the hospital hoardingthe scraps of food, crust, half a potatoshe'd been denied in Auschwitz. Her watchhas stopped. There was, there is no curefor Manya's fifty-year disease of grief: Eat salt,my mother said, if you have nothing else.Eat salt.Manya, is it you? I am so afraidI let her get up and go without a word
##.Branson where we took her after she'dslid along the road on her shoulderten feet back from that car's headlights Let herlive, God! kept those dirty ragged clothes on theliving room book shelf until she came home
##.for the Aged, there are forty-oddwomen on the patio sitting heads canted& mouths agape except formy mother in her wheelchairGood sunny day, I sayYeah, my mother says, all the oldflowers are out
##.just skirting edges of green lawns, sweet flowerspast those synagogues, weddings made and broken,vows taken and shattered, nights of lit candlesand memorials, past those wards of white beds andtrembling nights, past the strip malls where glattkosher & kosher style battle it out, pastCentennial where they've lifted him out of the snow andsent him to heal
##.where if you are driftingin a balloon at sunsetit is not quite like Hokusai seeing Fujithrough barrel hoops, among kite strings andunder the Great Wavethe city's swathed in haze, in its visionnot magic or majestic, it is a gatheringof human beings among the trees, it is the city
