Here I am living in Toronto, Texas
cowboys loping through cacti, crossing
horse troughs on Bathurst, toward
Dundas Saloon, corral on Queen
each cactus arm takes fifteen years to grow.
Sticking thumbs in belt loops a man walks up
pelvis first, dirt spattin’, one crimped eye
one joke for every sad story, says—
You got words. Make up a voice
and they’ll all think you’re Canadian.
I stomp my boots on the sidewalk
Racoons scatter, dirt won’t budge
Streetcars fly by picking up burrs
Inside the bar, wooden floorboards
hoard piles of sugar.
I nod my head, I know it’s true
but I can’t shake the snakes out from my grasses
or the twang out of my thoughts
the way you shake the winter
from your spring.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 5.
Cassie McDaniel has published Pushcart-nominated poetry and fiction in the US and Canada at various small journals including Capsule Stories, Split Quarterly and Mango Review. She lived in England and Ontario for more than a decade before resettling in Orlando where she is working on her first poetry book, Letters to Dead People.
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