The Wait

Fireworks, father, father, fireworks.
Vancouver is hippodrome to them in the west.
Sonorous over the high-rise front, they
clap the summer slate and bring a silence
out, that's ever pending in the vast cement.

They bereave the room, champagne pouncing,
dazzling crowds that have flocked to the bay
to be dazzled. Each crane splay, willow-spring
star blow you could not care less about.
Inlet's view has emptied the streets.

Shortly on the show's expiring
people will overwhelm them and flow
back through. Traffic will be gummed, so to stay
until wending ways are cleared would be wise,
or I could try and leave before they come - father,

they're just around the window frame, father,
fireworks, fireworks. Loneliest things
to take up air, like the fiercer art
between us here, taking space,
hollowing. Ancient clay

having no words comes up from
years of a youth, unknown until now.
Pressed to the flesh of it, I bow,
and you are pressed past the living hours,
as each minute poorer, you gain the door,

as up past the ceiling tiles are no more floors.