August 13

(four days before I came out of my 48-day retirement)

Beneath a manhole cover, I was inside a sewer, smacking reptiles aside with a crowbar, examining every labyrinthine twist of the underground. I sloshed knee deep down to the river, underneath the expressway, down to the butterfly park, where a gravel path made me giddy; there is a stiff breeze blowing from the northwest, from the armpit of Ontario, and a lonely fellow stolid on the rocks needs one word from a stranger to stop himself from suicide. “When it comes to work-related ‘cides’ it’s the ‘homi-‘ not the ‘sui-‘ I’m worried about," to quote the desperate downtown lawyer.

Yuletide is so far, the season is still summer, I was a bit of chlorophyll but now I’m a tree ready to be eaten by beetles, I am a soufflé so light and airy you can breathe me through a straw. The path is bumpy and broken, and the tires on my Peaches so bald, how easily we slip and scrape our skin in the dirty parts. But I pine for my pristine racetrack; I was guaranteed a wide berth and a clean slate. I always get what I want. I never know what I want. Desire is a Goose Chase.