Heron, False Creek

A new poem. And a Vancouver poem, at that. I must be settling in. AUDIO.

HERON, FALSE CREEK

There, Heron, you stand
in my shadow, stick pegs
and twigged feet steeped
in the freezing Creek’s

shallows, scissor-beaked
slink neck stapled
to a feathered bundle.
There, Heron, you stand,

avatar of angler’s
waiting, waiting, calm
as monks praying, steeped
in the shitty Creek’s

tide-drained stink—
then tensile—blink—
like a Singer’s
stainless needle,

that scissor beak
stabs the reeking
Creek, springs back
with silver, flipping,

flashing in the seawall
lamp standard’s
glare. With a slurp
and a shake, like

a puffy glutton
at Monk’s Oyster Bar
(stilted in False Creek’s
salted shallows)

sucking a shucked mollusk
from its crusted
shell, you swallow,
Heron, stand there

in my shadow, stare
up at the seawall,
skronk, and awkwardly
flop up into the air.