Lee’s Apartment

Behind the couch is Fred Astaire made motionless

without a cane, on purpose.

He annoys the guests and no one appreciates

the finer art of soft shoe

conducted by the shadow

of a dead generation.

The soft blue flicker interferes with random thought,

not politically correct,

but otherwise cool. My jaws are locked in tetanus.

I can’t sing O Canada!

I can’t be Ms Chatelaine!

I think of Edgar Bergen

(or was it Pierre Berton?)

and look beneath the carpet at a dying queen,

whom the king has never seen, for he was blinded

in The Battle of the Knight.

What the hell. The court is here

playing chess in velvet and fawning over prawns.

The AIM careening mad in Chevy trucks

begin the revolution,

missing the mark, but dangerously beautiful

in their impotence and rage.

And our holy name shall be called Omnipotent.

The bird in the cage has flown

and angelica grows wild

amid seeds of Chaucer’s dream

in the cracks across the floors of Lee’s apartment.