Jobless on the half-rotten porch, pulpit
to a sunken trans-Vancouver bike path a minute’s
whir from East Hastings. Jaded, couch-
surfing castaway, I thought
youth the best refusal and the great hope.
Jeff obsessed over how a spider gets its web
across the considerable distance between rail post
and magnolia. He asked me. I said dunno and went
to the library. Without design, the future shrugged.
I hoped I might find myself over there and not
be disappointed. Identity’s alarm. Mere puzzles
I juggled as I passed the grim ranks of homeless.
And learned the strand from a spider’s spinneret dangles
on the breeze until it sticks to something solid.
David O’Meara has written numerous poetry collections as well as the play Disaster.
