The City Poem by Leah Ayliffe

Fruits and Flowers on every corner.
Different languages rumble in the street chatter, in car radios.
One may be decieved into thinking they're somewhere else, yet there is a red and white flag dancing in the air, stamped with a maple leaf.
A city bus, a few subway stops, walking downtown near the college.
St. Lawrence Market beckons with diverse smells waiting inside.
I buy a coffee from a british man in the basment, he asks me about the tattoos on my body, a gateway conversation of where I've been.
A picnic table upstairs, on the balcony that embroiders the building. Red flowers.
Red flowers everywhere.
A picnic table. Black coffee with sugar to make the afternoon sweet. And a book to write poetry.
The sunshine in the peacock blue sky speaks to my skin about the record breaking heat today.
My chest the tone of cherries. I take delight in an indian summer, the hot September noon inspiring minds to talk on patio's. Businessmen and women, students back to the grind.
We named ourselves drinkers and thinkers. Trying to design a future that doesn't scare us.
It gets easier when life is spoken like a game we play. To be the losers or the winners, in the end it doesn't really matter.
None of it matters.
September skies, soft sighs and giddy smiles over red wine.
It matters, I think to myself, walking down different streets.
It matters, I demand, out of the city I call home.