3. 28. 2023

Triple Rainforest


Sam Weselowski



            dear Tom—
between the enduring
omelette light and
tingle of tract homes
behold the border collie
and its delicate
lucubration
by which it 
sniffs toadstool
and labradoodle
asshole
on this shiny afternoon
I’m tuned into
the electric cars 
wrapped in nu metal
bars and wonder
if they appear as driverless
on whatever street
you’re gliding down too

and would tell you 
everything but it slips
into the same
condos above and 
splayed condoms below
the ontology of Ontario

DO NOT ANCHOR OR DREDGE
where the rivers sledge
sturgeon soporific
and salmon unspecific
cradling log booms
and plane trees
laden with parachuting leaves
into someone else’s world

          like last night
when I left Sing Sing
turbo dinked
as my friend Ward
used to say
and now face
the day squinting
at big leather boots
and a Stahlhelm? no
it’s only a bucket hat
in the red cedar
shade, backdrop
for the pickup truck flying
a Confederate flag
around the cul-de-sac
beside the train tracks
where K Line bombs past
Katzie and Kwantlen land
making the suburbs 
twitch I guess
there really are
foot soldiers in this
timbrous wood

even so, I’m writing
and the clouds are huge
wheels of blue 
cheese heading 
straight for you

Sam Weselowski is a poet from Vancouver, unceded xwməθkwəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ territory. His most recent chapbook is Love Poems <3. He lives in the UK.