Street Names

Prairie grows tenements

in lieu of stalks of golden wheat.

Westminster is about as parliamentary

as a blurred shout from a passing car.

I enjoy the paradox, the irony,

as I walk these well-marked lies.

Years ago, when these streets were named,

someone did their bit for the modest end of history

and got it totally wrong.

Where are the prairies, where are

the Westminsters, in these narrow

Providence backlots?

What inspired the names?

It couldn't have been these roadways.

Back then, they were

nothing more than mud-heaps,

dug up by bullock dray and horse hoof,

the bullying trudge of early migrants

on the way home from factory work.

I imagine a bespectacled clerk from some

obscure city agency, face as narrow as a bean,

tasked with coming up with something, anything,

to christen these rutted tracks,

all huddled like cold fingers

at the Main Street's fire,

Maybe he remembered

the farmhouse, red as carnelian,

rising out of the powdery Midwestern sun.

Or pictures of a tourist's London

in the only book he ever owned.

That must be it.

The roads are not what they are.

They’re simply what he was.

The Ship

Its preferred mode is to lay at anchor.

It’d rather the view of land

than nothing but water in all directions.

It has already been everywhere.

These days, stillness gives it pleasure.

The crew are new. They’ve been nowhere

and they’re eager to be sailing.

But the ship is having none of it.

Does a dog do the bidding of fleas?