Heatwave

Patrick Grace

How long ago was it, just last week

the streetlight burst again when I passed

underneath, I guessed coincidence

after the second time, remember,

when the heatwave shattered record-

store windows and the power

we all held in our hands extinguished

for a few minutes, and we crawled out,

begrudgingly, from our wander into wonder

of the faces around us.

It lasted a short time.

In faraway cities, trains changed tracks.

Birds alighted the switch rails.

North become east and the earth tilted.

It lasted a short time. The last time

the light burnt out above me

on the road away from home,

my hands held nothing but glass.

My chances decreased the further

I found myself. The street stayed empty.

A train echoed across town.

All along we’ve struggled to look up.

Patrick Grace is a queer writer from Vancouver. His work has been published in Canadian journals such as Prairie Fire, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, and recently, Grain’s Queer Writers issue. His poetry has been longlisted for CV2’s Young Buck Poetry Prize and twice for PRISM international’s Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, and his poem “A Violence” won The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award for poetry in 2020. He is the managing editor of Plenitude Magazine.