just the fashion
                                                      
October 20, 1990
Burnaby, B.C.


Sieving out the gold
from one more welter of events;

the jumble of cement, paint, vinyl, latex, filler-gun
 a high-pitched snarling
         skillsaw 

fine dust, screw bits on the cordless drill,  
each 4 by 8 of composition-wood weighs eighty pounds

gets cut to line 
between two shopping carts
across the narrow space behind Justica 

fashions, formerly Taboo, some kind of smutty joke-shop, 
bankrupt six months back . . .

        what cost to change the colours, 
        shapes and angles of intense light?

        many shades of pale blue; pastel up to sea-green
                                                mirrors placed just so . . .

the clothing of the moment,
bums displayed more carefully than breasts this year

        just watching lovely bodies walking,
        counting hours in a small black book

one arm of the shopping mall
has got me by the throat;

that leather, billfold-slick, umbilicus . . .

a grid-locked pattern
swallowing its pride
       no matter what breaks down
       between the two of us

       I'm still prepared
       to let my fingers go on talking.