Farm land, house land,

Town land, mall land

3 hectares of box-store monolith land

Land of the soccer-centre and recreational utility building

Of thirteen civic centre’s and four public libraries with faded magazines and instructional videos

Occupying two thirds of a floor

Of catholic-school kids hogging the computers and Russian literature, faking excessively long shits in the single bathroom stall, to stalking the only people who actually filled out the requisitional form for a library card.

“can I have your number?”

 

Of one memorial centre/ prison and four banks on separate corners.

“This was once the most fertile land in all of Canada”

Red-eyed in Denny’s after church

“This was all field all corn and field”

 

I once grew a pumpkin

It took eight weeks and fourteen seeds and

Ballooned to the size of a lemon

And spat out only three seeds when my dad stepped on it

With size fourteen steel-toe workmans.

 

Of white flights that keep darkening

And a checkerboard layout that keeps filling in all the

Blank spaces

 

And two schools built in the middle of factory zones

“what’s wrong with this picture students”

And the laser-tag looks out onto the refinery by the Toys R Us

Next to the ten-lane highway with seven interchanges

Where we still see the occasional coyote.

 

“but where are the good neighbourhoods anymore”

one bar per hundred thousand

And sixteen home reno stores

“just outside of town”

And the movie theatre blasts opera on Fridays to scare off the teens

But don’t tell me there’s religious tension, the grandmother’s won’t allow it

 

Of cities that still think they’re towns

and town-lines that change every month

and immigrant towns that change the words for immigrant every month

“but don’t tell me we’re full there’s corn everywhere,

don’t worry we’re made for flight”

 

 

by Connor Mellegers

 

Connor Mellegers is originally from Brampton, Ontario and currently resides in Montreal Quebec where he is pursuing an English Literature degree at Concordia University. His work has previously appeared in The Fat City Review.

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