On the subway a guy across from me, big white hair pompadour,
exactly like Jim Jarmusch, film-ghost of a downtown dream,
and I liked believing it was him,
this artist of smoke and waiting rooms,
until he stood, ordinary shoes,
and I saw no, this weren’t no Jarmusch,
just another commuter trying to survive Wednesday.

Later another maybe-celebrity, Gene Simmons hair and body shape,
the shadow of a tongue unrolled into history.
I was about to tell him, excuse me sir you look like KISS,
but he scowled at the food crumbs, the wet stain on the bench,
and barked Toronto has become a can of the garbage
the grammar cracked and I
no longer thought he’d know the reference,
but still I agreed, this city lately smells of post-plague sleep,
transit turned halfway house, halfway church.

Sarah said she left the train last week,
urine ghosts too strong for breathing.
I climb the escalator at Dundas West,
the fluorescent hum like electricity learning free improv,
and there at the escalator top, a woman in an Olivia Chow shirt,
smiling like someone selling dianetics,
asking if I want to meet the mayor.

I have met the mayor, interviewed her once
for my Master’s degree at that lovely house
near Spadina and College.
My brother knew her at Queen’s Law in Kingston,
they were friends, both ask me about the other,
so there she stands now, accessible (and dancing),
maybe sincere, maybe staged, who can tell,
what politician doesn’t live inside a paradox.
If you represent the people you must also wear
the voices that disgust you.

At a Bloor Street festival years ago she told me,
you should run for the NDP,
and I liked that, the shock, the compliment,
the sudden hallucination of purpose.
But to represent all voices,
that’s more filing cabinet than song,
more tuning than singing.
And here I am again,
riding the city’s slow-moving drum sample,
Toronto humming its broken-hearted chorus through me.