TWIN GOSSIP
after alana’s launch
i am flanked by eerily handsome twins
running the new mile end reading series.
one probes me for my lore
--o yea so i’m from windsor,
it’s like south ontario, across from detroit.
i say this every time, centering my proximity
to america—back home this is embarrassing,
but here it plays off with intrigue.
here half the anglos are from Ottawa,
with scars on their soft bellies
where they wretched the umbilical lanyard
to vivre bohème in lease-transfer city.
TWIN:
did you visit detroit often?
GWEN:
yeah, punk shows and galleries,
but then i lost my passport over there.
TWIN:
did you lose it while getting hatecrimed?
i blush and snort gin. i like boys
who play rough like this, the light is soft
and dim and he and i network a little.
the key to networking is to be fun,
available, flirty, and obvious.
tell everyone you are a needy girl
who knows how to perform,
then disappear for a refill.
alana finds me drunk and joyous,
we’re all so proud of her,
she pulls me into the bathroom
i either did coke or watched the girls
do coke, i don’t remember.
ALANA:
did u know those guys r feds?
GWEN:
what? lmao
ALANA:
ok so the one brother is a journalist
who was hanging around ukraine,
the one u were talking to is literally
an intelligence officer in the navy.
later, with a wink,
i ask if he dogged the communist party
he grins, yeah maybe i did, then off again—
outside the bar some drunk ranting
in my ear about the news. i don’t really listen.
i stare at the sky where stars should be
and wait for the girls to appear.
a car blares brazilian funk and i dance
alone on the sidewalk, bumping into
passerbys. the drunk is saying something
about putin. i say isn’t that the guy
on the horse? wishing i was stupid,
spinning on a utility pole as the funk
drives away.
i should be an organizer again, i fantasize.
sure, none of them know how to talk to women,
but at least there the pigs dig quietly
in our mud, emulating shame.
mile end flop
you insisted,
text me when you get in!
so straight off a junk train
out the Cote-Saint-Luc Junction freight yard
i found you and six other boys
collapsed in sweating drunk walls
smeared with oil
paintings of dinosaurs
wreaking history on a Toronto skyline.
i’d upped my estrogen that week,
my pheromones correct, yet
still not a distraction from Tekken.
you said you’d converted
from Irish Pagan to Russian Orthodox.
when the church bells rang
you made me borscht.
a week went like this, every night
poor Kimura would get so drunk
we’d have to haul him to bed.
when i changed for the road
i forgot my panties in his bedroom.
he told me he jerks off to futa
so i guess i repaid my stay.
stalling in the stairwell
from the snowstorm,
i asked you to marry me
for the EU passport.
you said Orbán thinks
traps are gay—
besides, you hoped to find a wife
back home in Hungary.
as i left to meet
the arms of another
methyl-rideshare guy,
i watched the sun slip
below the biodome.
i mashed the button for kicking
til the sidewalk was cherry slushy.
i wifed the city.
GWEN AUBE: