on our way to a paperless office...

Every DAY, during an unrecorded minute in an undisclosed location, the passenger window of the sports car's smashed; the computer printer lies inert in the back seat, the filing cabinet at rest in the dark-green hearse parked ahead of it...

gag reflex

Every DAY around seven p.m., he puts an empty carton at the curb for pick-up marked:

Disposable Tongue
Depressors

Sight gag? On-sight gag? OK, maybe it's just me...

Extra, extra...

Every DAY, around 5:50 in the morning,
a squirrel buries a brown chestnut
deep inside the hollow
of the rolled-up morning paper on the steps.

amid hankerings for change, a blessing

Every DAY at noon, a fellow pedestrian you're overtaking starts to empty his nose onto the sidewalk with enthusiastic diligence. When you say, "Eeeuw" or something equally evocative, he looks up, still festooned, to say, "I'm sorry, sir; I don't have any choice: I'm all stuffed up."

...and you didn't give him fifty cents?!

Every DAY, just before 8pm, the guy in the wheelchair on College promises you that the big computer-store box on the ground beside him will perform a dance for you, for only fifty cents.

away home

Every DAY, at 18:25, pacing the gate latch, (on the business end, yet), there's a ladybug, its wings folded inexpertly, a novice with a roadmap, so black tails stick out the back of its shiny red car doors, so where are we? - beats me - right, we can't get in.

in broad daylight

Every DAY, 9:37 a.m., and a crane named Anchor gropes for the Cardiac Centre's huge, floating, electric heart...

the count

Every DAY at 3:00am, he's shouting:
"You stupid bitch! I'm not hitting you!"
During this minute, at least, at least his self-description's accurate.

shunsign

Every DAY, 5:50 post meridian, a subway rider - young, accompanied by friends, able-bodied and wearing a backpack - sets a popcan on the platform right outside the car doors just before they close. His problem vanishes...

Finch at Bay

Every DAY at 5am:
tiny, grey-green, in the planter by the office tower, unmoving; claws curled, yet the beak points back.

I see tips coming your way...

Every DAY, around five after ten, just after closing time,
one of the people sitting at the window table
reads the lines on the waitress's palm...

clip

Every DAY at 17:16, the sweet spot,
teetering aural totter balance point,
where the receding clops of the RCMP's two Ms
mirror the high heels' brisk advance.

cutting to the chase

Every DAY, 6:58pm, the streetcar driver hares across the road to pick several twenty-dollar bills out of the gutter, and then nips back to his side, car, seat.

I ask you

Every DAY at 22:10, he inquires of the bracketing policemen, "How can a GARbage-picker be a PANhandler?"

Polly, is that you?

Every DAY at 5:55pm, sunlight barrels through the wholesaler's shop-window lettering at just the perfect angle to personalize the t-shirt of the mannequin with her new name, (and half the t-shirt's make-up): E S T E R.

baffled, smiling

Every DAY, 22:22, his appearance in a no-name neighbourhood that bridges Chinatown and Little Italy; walking west, carrying a baffled square of brown eggs, smiling...

3 2 1...

Three two-one seems like such a great date
for starting stuff. Spring, ferinstance. Or a blog.
Three, two, one, lift-off!
Though, in some sense,
this one started in the summer of two thousand three...