Saint John, New Brunswick

Neptune sighs

With the breath of a god who’s lived too long

And the fog descends 

Over the living and the dead of Saint John.

Centuries of Protestant pride

And Catholic shame

Loyalist blood

And famine-starved bone

Crunching together 

Like continental plates colliding 

Ploughing up mountains 

Resembling steeples.

Providing the habitat 

For that singular species 

The Old Saint John family.

They’ve created their own gods

Thick-featured statues with broad shoulders

Squatting outside Market Square

Appearing again 

In the paintings of Miller Brittain.

But these thick people are only aspirational. 

The Saint Johner 

Is as thin-skinned 
as the Pinot grapes

That also thrive 
under cover of fog.

The bricks of their ancient buildings

Mortared together

With centuries of insults 

both real and imagined 

(Seven parts of the latter 
to every one of the former).

They know their prayers.

But the one they know best

Is the one they'd never dare say

Before their neighbours.

A prayer the people in their Sunday finest

know better than the Lord’s

Than the Hail Mary.

We are afraid. 

We feel alone.

We want to be wanted.

A prayer that still echoes

Against the stone walls

Of their family chapels.