Turning into Grizzly Street

That's what I'm like, like someone whistling

"Yellow Bird" or "Yankee Doodle,"

stomping home beneath the Northern

lights a-shining- Heeeere's Roddy!

Fifteen below and no hat with me:

bald as gulls' eggs, Yul and Telly,

my tummy full and all the trimmings,

Reese's Cups and crabmeat chowder,

Arctic Red; like someone crooning

"A Case of You" or "Chelsea Morning"

by Joni (who was born Roberta);

oh Canada, how cold, how dry-

you make of me Orion skulled,

the guest star in a winter drama,

the brown king on the second camel,

and never a word is dithered or dull.

What am I like? Unhinged, unsteady,

up Caribou Street, onto Grizzly,

my big feet sinking down through powder,

the gardens jaunting below their blankets

all white and crispy. I've gone troppo,

let's make that frosto, log cabin fever.

Tunnel Mountain hovers neatly;

the air runs so thin, I get jealous.

As scabby cougars, scrawny coyotes

circle the township, hot springs bubble

in Electric Shock and Nosebleed City.

If it ain't beef it ain't Alberta.

Are those the songs of Cassin's auklet,

tundra swan and purple martin?

That's what I'm like, like a lone elk nosing

for fronds in the topfreeze, a nutcracker squat

on a creaking lodgepole. Stars fizz for me,

the man-in-the-moon hawks out a comet,