on exhaust-clogged 401, we pass Travelodge

its giant TM Teddy Bear (blue jacket, socks

and stocking cap) promising instant innocence

to weary travellers. My husband drives; the kids

sleep. I read much of the way: Little Dorrit

as the car crawls east.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

out of asphalt, out of grass

parched beneath

how can you speak out, knowing from web and net,

newspaper columns, television screens

the global picture. From hardwoods’ ashy foam, the dying

arms of winter, from a few pared bones

of birch, hidden miracles of sap and leaf.

Somewhere north are rivers

of jade silk, and mountain crocus

springs from lichen-scribbled rock. When we came back,

late, from Miles Canyon, our faces wet with spray,

alive, open

as our freely empty hands:

Truckers lunge past, underpaid and underslept.

The Last Battle–kids

reading aloud how Shift talks poor, dim

donkey Puzzle into wearing godly

Lion’s skin. Clennam draws from Pancks

business, i.e. squeezing the poor to oil the rich.

50% exchange rate on US currency

at gas stations near Kingston. Win Points:

Redeem Your Points. Nearly nine, blue

thickens into black, the kids now singing

un Canadien errant

bani de ses foyers.

Madame Shelagh, famous clairparlante

had a bad cold, nevertheless

with a wicked laugh. Here,

said she, are twin sister-students, and the Lady of Protests

(Once, those rubies were your eyes. Look!)

Here is Lady Liberty, on stilts

the lady of crisis situations.

Here is the globe and here the Star-Striped

Phallus, fucking it up.

And here the water cannon; here are

the one-eyed, double-dealing merchants, and this page

which you are forbidden to see. I do not find

The Statesman. Fear death by choking.

I see crowds of people, watching, and stricken,

falling back and pushing forward.

Unreal City,

Under the blue & white of fleurs-de-lys

a crowd flowed into Place du Théatre, so many

I had not thought alarms had called up so many.

Cheering and explosions,

blinded windows. Riot cops studded in rows, blocking

side streets. There I saw one I knew

and stopped him, crying: "Stevens!"

"You who were on NAFTA’s side!

"That corpse you planted in this country’s garden–

"Has it sprouted into this? Or has civil discontent

disturbed its bed? "Oh keep Watch Dog far hence, that’s friend to men

or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!"

"You! Hypocrite free-trader–mon semblable–