BY BILL GARVEY
Copyright is held by the author.
Saint Patrick Station
If you see something, say something
says the pleasant voice over the intercom,
enlisting all to be on guard as we descend
into Toronto, none of us paying attention,
not that anyone knows what to look for.
An abandoned backpack? Full length
overcoat? I wait on the Northbound
platform safely away from the yellow
line. The jade-coloured tiles that lend
a bit of calm to the tunnel are gone,
carefully pried from the walls exposing
the steel tubular structure through which
we travel. A million bolts, nuts as large
as my fist, hold everything together,
enduring seventy years of commuting.
I just had lunch with Angela and Robin,
the baby bundled against the bitter cold,
strapped safer than a pilot into her stroller.
I made Robin laugh one last time, then
hugged my daughter before I left them,
and now I imagine Angela pushing
the stroller, speaking to her daughter
about Papa or the AGO or blueberries
with yogurt she’ll feed to her when
they get home. The subway whooshes
into Saint Patrick Station. Passengers
exit/enter. The intercom repeats itself.
Saint Clair West
With all her might a young girl clamps
her skinny legs around one of her father’s
to keep him from falling when we lurch
forward or to protect him from the danger
she imagines lurks on a crowded streetcar
behind the hoods, hats and masks of bundled
up commuters who jostle, jolt and bump her father,
but he stands firm, facing her, his back to me,
his leg hugged by her light blue leggings
even tighter now as the streetcar squeals
around a snug corner to deliver us via
mechanical wonder to our future.
Bill Garvey grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S., and lives in Toronto and Nova Scotia. Bill’s collection of poetry, The basement on Biella, was published in 2023 by DarkWinter Press. His work has been nominated for The Griffin Poetry Prize and Best of the Net. His poems have appeared in The Queen’s Quarterly, New Verse News, Thimble, Wrong Turn Lit, Rattle, One Art, San Antonio Review, Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, The New Quarterly, Nixes Mate Review and others.
Wonderful writing!