AND AFTERWARD

"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men
will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams."

Like a blade of grass tensed beneath
the dew, so will you stir
restless from deep-weighted sleep
and find yourself alone and cold
in your bed, wishing

for more than a little light
to read by, more than
a story,

but something deeper, and reminiscent
of a cloud soaked with
sea water. Dark and salty
with tears and rain

and memories

of your grandmother, long dead
and buried. You will hear her
speak through the holes unearthed

by dreams. There she is, standing
in the kitchen making breakfast,
for you, a boy, saying

won't be long now,
until I'm gone;

the Alzheimer's eating holes even then,
leaving only echoes in your place.

WEARING DOWN THE HOURS

Something is always whirring in the backdrop
of your mind: insect's clicking carapace,
fangs with venom poised and waiting.

Dust in the vents, and ancient things
asleep in cobwebs, rattling the bolts
with their breathing late at night, while

the heater clunks away somewhere
in the corner of the room - its breath
rancid and heavy like a drunk's.

Over the years you've come to know
the night sounds like friends: familiar
voices treading worn patches into memory,

and into skin; the creases sinking under the
weight of invisible worms - the price of
laughter, the price of anger, of a smile.

You are too far worn for this, and the
stakes get higher the more you've lost.
Once light in the silence, you've grown

too tired of that tune to sleep, and so the
weight of it grows thick, hardening like
cement between the shoulder blades,

and as always, you sitting in your lonely
darkened room, the heater humming
loudly in the otherwise stillness

of a prolonged breath.

Cameron Dick Cameron Dick is a first year undergraduate student in Toronto at York University, where he is currently studying English at Glendon, the bilingual campus. Though he has had an appreciation of poetry for some time, only recently has he set about getting his own work published. To date, his poetry has appeared in the literary annual, Challenger International, as well as the York University publication, ProTem. .

Email: Cameron Dick

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