Two Poems – Steve McOrmond

A Change is Proposed

Juddered awake by flatbeds queuing in the dark
and early to deliver loads of rebar and gyprock.
Their idling rattles windows eleven storeys up,
throws us and the pictures on the walls off kilter.

The monotonous beep-beep-beep of trucks
backing up is gentrification’s work song.
Danger Due to Reversing. When a vehicle
loses sight of its tenor, it raises an alarm.

Our waking days synchronize with the modern
synthesized rhythms of the building site. All day,
slow and steady, the construction crane lifts
plywood, steel and rod, swinging its cargo all kinds

of sideways, setting it down as tenderly as fine
bone china or a Steinway baby grand.
A few more floors and our slantwise
view of the lake will be displaced.

Gargoyle

Much as I try to guard my corner, remain
vigilant like the peregrine falcon

perched on the ledge of the office tower
across the concourse, watching

dispassionately as pedestrians pour
out of the train station in waves,

my mind drifts. In the passive control
task, participants are asked to fixate

on a crosshair. I have work to do
if I want to get paid, every interruption

a detour that takes me thirty minutes
out of my way. There’s too much

to pay attention to, and it’s happening
all at once. The deluge pours through me,

spouts from my mouth. Sitting on my haunches,
I’m what the gutter leads to. When the machines

start to hallucinate, they call it a breakthrough.
Manic-depressive markets get another injection

of capital, and what about the new barbarism
we’ve backslid into without much of a fight?

Hurricanes are fragile structures. A shift
in the wind can cause the inner core

to wobble in ways the models can’t predict.
We are not, any of us, all right.

The peregrine might be asleep
for all I know, its eyes wide open.  

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Steve McOrmond is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Reckon. A past recipient of the P. K. Page Founders’ Award for Poetry, his work has appeared on Poetry Daily and in Best Canadian Poetry. His chapbook Jacaranda Trees, Mexico City was published by Baseline Press in fall 2025. A new full-length collection of poems is forthcoming in spring 2027 from the University of Regina Press Oskana Poetry and Poetics Series. He lives in Toronto. Visit him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smcormond/.

Banner & Art: “take it elsewhere” a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2026.