Mission Street Song
by Jon Paul Fiorentino

Take an eight-cylinder engine down to Mission Street
and race the trains and lose every time.

Take seven gravol tablets and wake up to ironic
cricket songs and the West Nile in your blood.

Place your work on your tongue and swallow slowly.
Sprawl out on prairie tall grass; preserve it with
your nostalgic lapses.

Settle in St. Boniface; photocopy your lexicon and
send it priority post to the National Library.

Wake up again to Winnipeg, on Mission Street:

Listen to the song of the grey city:
your entire family, the police officers, the trains,
the teenaged cars, the social workers, the safe
houses, the scrap yards, the playgrounds are crooning
"disrepair."

take the time to visit chez fiorentino when you get the chance.