I have returned to the city of the flood,
where unsuspecting citizens still wait for the rain to cease
(unaware that their necks have split in gills,
their fingers and toes have grown a webbed skin).
Someone is diving down the Drive
on a thin bicycle, thin tires, under thick skies.
But no one seems to understand their state;
they all still wait, still think that the waters will drain,
and the valley of the city will be unveiled.
This rain, this flood, is unrelenting;
it will remain.
But I have no gills, and I have come home,
and I know that I must find a way to live.
It wraps my neck in weeds and fills
my lungs while I sleep beneath the lapping rain.
It is only breathing I am denied.
I am free to live in any other way I can find.
The city of the flood has come with me;
I have always been here. I insist on it.
I brought it East to Ontario, and to
the Albertan fields. It rained in the mountains;
I was buried beneath the sky, at the highest pass.
I have never left. I deny it.
All Summer, it has been raining, and I have been blind.
A season of rain, and I have not seen it.
But just this moment, my vision has returned;
in a moment, the city glows, the haze of summer fires expunged,
the waters rush to cover us, and I know
I have always lived in the city of the flood.