Superhero
Nov 22 2010


In the old part of town, where I live
there are still alleyways,
running between backyards
like some feral no-man’s land
— a hidden grid,
that shadows
the city streets.

You can tell the neighbourhood
by the wooden fences —
custom-built, and thick,
higher than by-laws permit.
Or over a bit,
where they’re chain-link
and leaning,
anchored in cheap concrete.
And hedges
with sharply trimmed edges,
or moth-eaten, and growing wild.
There are manicured lawns
like a real-estate ad,
or hard dry pads
with weeds, and bare spots,
and a plywood sandbox
with its cracker-jack prize
of plastic toys
and cat shit.

Some good citizens
diligently cut the grass
of the verdant alley, out back;
either civic-minded
or defending their sovereign border
from weeds.
Others ignore it,
a temperate jungle
gone to seed.
And some cheat
going fenceless,
plundering several square feet
of public property
as their own.

I walk the dog here
after dark,
feeling vaguely incognito
an object of suspicion, even.
I can see into windows
where curtains aren’t drawn,
this private world
of quiet backyards.
Rooms blazing warmly with light
looking out
into pitch black night;
so they are blind
to the outside world.
And I am a superhero
in my cloak of invisibility
— the impunity
of darkness.

In winter
the alley is a rutted path
of frozen footsteps
dog scat
a child’s lost mitten.
For a week in fall
there are raspberries,
free-for-the-picking.
And summer is a cool refuge of green,
passing people in their backyard sanctuaries
escaping the street.
Where I can hear ice cubes clink
sudden laughter
kids, splashing in a wading pool.

I hustle on past
avoiding eye contact.
Feeling like a stranger, a voyeur,
intruding on a private world.