Lunch hour hangouts

1. The Royal York

   I’m forever seduced by the romance
   of empty wooden desks in this lobby
   old and glamorous as a diamond.

   Someday I will sit here and write
   lines of trash in laborious penmanship.
   Alas, my muse is a rawboned rover
   who cannot bear the weight
   of ambiance; I'm doomed
   to scrap paper scribbles on
   crowded subway seats.



2. St. Andrew’s Church

   Reverent silence, broken
   by the stray coughs of mortals
   and the surreptitious turning
   of comic book pages.

   In Toronto, religion
   is handed out on street corners;
   you need to know where to look
   for good Romanesque Revivals
   and quiet reading rooms.



3. Urban Affairs Library

   Reference only. I keep coming back
   like a foolish girl waiting for love
   from a one hundred night stand.

   You're everything I ever wanted, but
   you'll never come home with me
   to meet my parents.

        Where do you go or what do you do on your lunch hour?