Buildings that once barely scraped the trees
have shot up, and the city feels like

a twenty-five-year-old, rangy and nocturnal.
Fresh new adults pour in and out

of restaurants—so many cheeks
without wrinkles, hands without toddlers,

heads without hats. I slalom around smokers
and stride into dark streets, and no alarms

blare in my mind, all sense of danger
having rolled off the plane

as it leapt north to a time when snow piles
lasted through spring and rights

weren’t sinking out of reach like coins
tossed into a public fountain.

Skipping the metro, I walk, electric signs
blasting my face, inner refrain displaced

by Quebecois patter, jumping crosswalk
lights and finessing puddle ice like a true

survivor of winter. The cold, though bitter,
tastes like comfort food.