NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Brandt, Di

      Now you care / Di Brandt.

      Poems.

      ISBN 1-55245-127-5

      I. Title.

      PS8553.R2953N69 2003 C811′.54 C2003-904402-5

       for Walter

       For the dawn, disgrace is the day to come; for the twilight the night which engulfs it. Formerly there were people of the dawn. Here we are, perhaps, at this hour of nightfall. But why crested like larks?

       – René Char

       ZONE

       I was mixing stars and sand In front of him But he couldn't understand I was keeping the lightning of The thunder in my purse Just in front of him But he couldn't understand And I had been killed a thousand times Right at his feet But he hadn't understood

      – Sarain Stump

       Zone: <le Détroit>

       after Stan Douglas

      1

      Breathing yellow air

      here, at the heart of the dream

      of the new world,

      the bones of old horses and dead Indians

      and lush virgin land, dripping with fruit

      and the promise of wheat,

      overlaid with glass and steel

      and the dream of speed:

      all these our bodies

      crushed to appease

      the 400 & 1 gods

      of the Superhighway,

      NAFTA, we worship you,

      hallowed be your name,

      here, where we are scattered

      like dust or rain in ditches,

      the ghosts of passenger pigeons

      clouding the silver towered sky,

      the future clogged in the arteries

      of the potholed city,

      Tecumseh, come back to us from your green grave, sing us your song of bravery on the lit bridge over the black river, splayed with grief over the loss of its ancient rainbow coloured fish swollen joy. Who shall be fisher king over this poisoned country, whose borders have become a mockery, blowing the world to bits with cars and cars and trucks and electricity and cars, who will cover our splintered bones with earth and blood, who will sing us back into –

      2

      See how there’s no one going to Windsor,

      only everyone coming from?

      Maybe they’ve been evacuated,

      maybe there’s nuclear war,

      maybe when we get there we’ll be the only ones.

      See all those trucks coming toward us,

      why else would there be rush hour on the 401

      on a Thursday at nine o’clock in the evening?

      I counted 200 trucks and 300 cars

      and that’s just since London.

      See that strange light in the sky over Detroit,

      see how dark it is over Windsor?

      You know how people keep disappearing,

      you know all those babies born with deformities,

      you know how organ thieves follow tourists

      on the highway and grab them at night

      on the motel turnoffs,

      you know they’re staging those big highway accidents

      to increase the number of organ donors?

      My brother knew one of the guys paid to do it,

      $100,000 for twenty bodies

      but only if the livers are good.

      See that car that’s been following us for the last hour,

      see the pink glow of its headlights in the mirror?

      That’s how you know.

      Maybe we should turn around,

      maybe we should duck so they can’t see us,

      maybe it’s too late,

      maybe we’re already dead,

      maybe the war is over,

      maybe we’re the only ones alive.

      3

      So there I am, sniffing around

      the railroad tracks

      in my usual quest for a bit of wildness,

      weeds, something untinkered with,

      goldenrod, purple aster, burdocks,

      defiant against creosote,

      my prairie blood surging

      in recognition and fellow feeling,

      and o god, missing my dog,

      and hey, what do you know,

      there’s treasure here

      among these forgotten weeds,

      so this is where they hang out,

      all those women’s breasts

      cut off to keep our lawns green

      and dandelion free,

      here they are, dancing

      their breastly ghost dance,

      stirring up a slight wind in fact

      and behaving for all the world

      like dandelions in seed,

      their featherwinged purple nipples

      oozing sticky milk,

      so what am I supposed to do,

      pretend I haven’t seen them,

      or like I don’t care

      about all these missing breasts,

      how they just vanish

      from our aching chests

      and no one says a word,

      and we just strap on fake ones

      and the dandelions keep dying,

      and the grass on our lawns

      gets greener and greener

      and greener

      4

      This gold and red autumn heat,

      this glorious tree splendour,

      splayed