Telling you that

is like I am on the airport bus,

unable to muster up anything

for the city I am leaving

so irrevocably. I try cadging,

and threats, but can’t seem

to mean them. Yes, there’s my

favorite restaurant, and the

CN Tower I went to once

in ten years—so what? And this

street corner where I waited for the bus

in the snow, to go back to that

walk-up at King and Dufferin,

and later there was the shiny apartment

with the cuirass in the lobby, and no

heating breakdowns, and without the

mold with its black-toothed grip

on the grouting. Yet—if only I could

go back—I packed up that apartment, yes,

I threw away my belongings;

so what? The plane can be missed.

This bad idea that occurred

after another bad idea and metastasized

into this: Before the Gardner Expressway,

or even in one of the blue chairs

in the departure lounge, that’s when

I could have gone back. But not

now. Now I can only say to you: That

was my life and I lived it but now

it’s over. And now this sentence

makes no difference to you, now.

Snagged on a cactus,

exposed throat

gaping at its own

charred and beaten

edges—like many of us

it was spun until it burst

and there was no use for it

after that. This one, at least,

I’m going to say, is glad to have escaped

a watered-down retirement

as a birdbath, garden decoration

or plant box with half a pound of seed

potatoes, and is proud, also

to have gone out like it did,

and so remains, buckled

in its bow long after

the show has ended.