In the Key of Ursa Minor

October 20, 2014

Matthew Tierney is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Probably Inevitable (Coach House Books), which won a Trillium Book Award in 2013...

Three fake plastic bushes per sill
in the mall promenade.
A poor man’s Platonic ideal,
like the subset that forms in my heart
for the Tyrolean girls of retail.

My omniscience evaporates
outside the subject/object divide.
Not to say you aren’t lab rats
but I believe you believe I believe in free will.

Under the lodestar, snow.
A panhandler holds his cardboard square:
              Inoperable Brain Cancer
              Need $$$
I cry, “What for?”

It’s possible for preceding events
to happen in reverse order
like the following.

Citywide, toddlers are being revived
in unlicensed daycares.
When attacked by a grizzly,
you’re supposed to lie there, little bear.

Matthew Tierney is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Probably Inevitable (Coach House Books), which won a Trillium Book Award in 2013. He is a former winner of the P.K. Page Founders’ Award and a K.M. Hunter Award. He lives in Toronto with his wife and son.