Civil Twilight

My confusion-cornered commuters are cursing the cold away

As December tries to dissemble the length of their working day

And they bite their mitts off to show me transfers, deposit change

and I can't stop finding your face in their faces, all rearranged

and angry like you never were;

And I ease us back into traffic

dusk comes on and I wonder why

I'm always remembering you

in civil twilight

for the most part I think about golfing and constantly calculate

all the seconds left in the minutes, and so on, etcetera

Or recite the names of provinces and Hollywood actors;

Oh, Ontario! Oh, Jennifer Jason Leigh!

This part of the day bewilders me

Streets slow down and ice over,

Dusk comes on and I struggle to stop,

To stop to stop thinking of you

In civil twilight

Hey, every other hour I pass that house,

Where you told me that you had to go

I wonder if the landlord has fixed the crack,

That I stared at, instead of staring back at you;

My chance to say something seemed so brief, but it wasn't.

Now I know I had plenty of time

Between the sunset and certified darkness

Dusk comes on and I follow the exhaust from memory up to the end

The civil twilight

The civil twilight

The civil twilight

The civil twilight