The Birthday Skunk

The Median* Birthday Skunk

 

Everytime we see a skunk, someone’s birthday is nigh.  Whether winter or spring or fall or summer, a skunk may lumber out of the shadows on any Montreal night.  Especially near the mountain. 

However, the last time I saw the birthday skunk was elsewhere, late at night, walking home.  We had just made it across the field that was maybe where Doctor Zhivago was filmed and were at the Lachine Canal, right on that little bridge over the inlet to the horse barns.  And out of the dark comes a big fat skunk onto the bridge.  Having learned why the chicken crossed the road, it was all too easy to guess why the skunk was crossing the bridge.  The skunk was right here, deep in the critique of pure reason, to answer the question too. 

Maybe we were not paying attention and thought the animal was a fat cat with short legs or a raccoon with a small head so we walked out onto the bridge rather impetuously.  Resolving the white racing stripes, though, we stopped in midstep close to the middle with about nine feet of no-man’s-land.  The birthday skunk didn’t heed us at first either, or maybe expected the right of way, and stopped in a huff. 

For a minute and a half we all paused, gauging up who was going to yield the bridge.  Slowly, we started to back up and skunk looked right and then looked left.  Skunk raised up that famous tail to indicate something, not sure what.  Skunk turned tail but, defying the phrase, did not run.  Sunk waived that tail.  We took another step back and noted a leeward position.  Skunk looked over at us with a deep gaze, a penetrating stare projecting from black emotional eyes, a haughty look that dared us to not fly away like pigeons in front of a train.  Skunk was about to take the bridge.

But here is what I’m thinking right then:  How much shame would incur, running away from a skunk as our forefathers did for eons and their forefathers before them?  And how much honor would come from facing that skunk and collecting the toll due to mankind, mankind whom dug that canal and engineered that bridge over?  Either way, lots and lots. 

In lieu, to wit, I stepped forward and the skunk bounced up and down twice, like a basketball, on nimble hindquarters then waddled off the bridge.  We pursued cautiously.  Skunk was lingering there at the end corner so we cut a wide turn.  But I wanted to get closer and interview the skunk for some post-game analysis or maybe to just remind that skunk that they still stink. 

On tip-toes, approaching I felt like a gladiator and the skunk felt like a mighty skunk.  The skunk took one last look and with a wrinkled nose rumbled into the bush and away. 

No spray.

*not to be confused with mediocre, mediocre being a different word.

visions_version_^^

some gnomon turns
noon into four
the remainder
same angle geese
measure when five
get together and go

years between ears

he was a silver cutting tool
she was a silvercutting tool
side by side
equal parts measured
poured from the same spot
ivory shims
bones within
with whispers for tread
apart from them tears torn
wings on the porch
left fluttering in the wind
plucked out the dust up the back winder
sun battering the door reminder
black spiral rote thinker
sits to spring in
knows who boils things
gargoyle railing thin
hunger under a dappled coat hem
greatest patience friend
to who best understands

visions_versions_sb9

the blanket of white
the snow blood
dark spots
opposites
star brights

visions_version_d2

outside of
their body
ducks dont
take up much
space extant
archimedes solution
of course
dive they
must through
milwaukees turqoise
icthys skirts

bay

ten groups of
ten ducks swim
go around and then
some rooms
if rooms
are ice of seagulls
effortlessly float by
watching particularly
waiting shades of
winter over

visions_versions_H

How did I know it was heaven in fact? 
Well its hard to say for sure; I don't have anything definite to go on.

But for what its worth as pure conjecture, where else would a bar tender be a big beautiful fish wearing deerskin gloves that shone with a gasoline sheen under the schlitz light?  This was some place for sure.

The sparkle of the rain on the chairs even had a diffident quality to it as if this was the same rain as the rain that never falls to earth, never mixes with the dirty soil, never is slurped up by vermin and curs.  In this sense, as a set of seven chairs comprising one objet d'art collectively, even the chairs made sense. Each rung had five or six pairs of socks hanging which were all dry despite the rain. This was some heavenly laundromat maybe with a bar and a bar tender fish wearing deerskin gloves. There was even a deer drinking water out of a tall chalice that was stamped with big bold letters in times new roman spelling out holy grail who was wearing calfskin gloves and who had recently retired from a long and distinguished career in bullfighting (front office).  I dint get to talk to the deer much or even very long at all because the phone kept ringing and it kept being for the deer.

But what I did overhear was that it had been raining for three days straight.  But get this: It wasn't even raining! It just looked like it was raining.  No one was even wet except for the chairs and the bartender who was a fish.  Anyway, I only lasted a little while there because they kicked me out because my laundry was all dry and apparently they have a policy about it and also I kept ordering drinks they didn't have with money I didn't have.

thaw a minute

steps into melts
hath winter half
given up drops
accumulate in convex
old shoes opt
out damn spot
hop scotch and off
depressed earth soft

starts

the leeward snow
enters through the window
moonlight soft blue
though the sun
is up in
the kitchen running
puddling orange
on the fake marble floor

visions_sb5

january deer
a vulnerability
frozen on south bay
versions of trees stand
insurrection in insight
manifolds of thought

visions_version_e

ice edged with eagles
boring in their viciousness
expecting nothing