CÔTES-DES-NEIGES ❋ Jason Freure

Côte-des-Neiges,
your apartment will be raided again and again,
not by the SPVM, who know you run a dial-a-joint service,
who haul limbs out of your dumpsters and arrest your porn-star killers, by your teenagers,
who know better than to troll Cavendish Mall,
who have memorized the closing times of your shawarma shops
and pizza deliveries. It will not be by your pilgrims
dreaming under Easter eggshells,
who come in tour buses to polish their kneecaps on your wooden stairs,
porting their agonies from Catholic countries.
When the raiding squads come, the Snowdon delis will be deserted.
Young men will drop their paint cans, their murals will slip from their walls
undetected.
Metro will bar shut its automatic doors. Churros will be rationed.
O Côte-des-Neiges, you will greet them all when the airport shuttle
terminates in your train stations. You were not bricked together
to turn your back on anyone, however much they will take with them
when they leave.
Your radiators were not installed to run for long.

your apartment will be raided again and again,
dreaming under Easter eggshells,
Metro will bar shut its automatic doors. Churros will be rationed.
Your radiators were not installed to run for long.
Even when they stop to admire the maples in the park
by the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, they will betray you.
Even when they donate to the Segal Centre
or come back into town to dine at Pushap Sweets,
they will betray you.

They will knock on your door through every night—
no one could keep their socks dry or their fingers warm
without your spare couch, the other side of your bed, your half-swept floor,
if you kept your chains latched against them.
they will betray you.