York Mills Station

She’s walking between skyscrapers,

attempting to mimic a paper house

at 3am, which is filled with names

like Johnny, Xiao Mei, and Sammy.

Also, the snow is warm (it’s a real

thing); they engineered it in lab,

a synthesis of red and blue pigments,

like a police siren’s doppler effect, so

put your minute hand down. She isn’t

walking toward her room near Finch,

she's just walking, and the windows

keep getting smaller, bulldozed.

So she has dust on her coat, like a chef

in the alley lighting a smoke in the dark,

and she passes by a billboard selling

water, which reminds her that her mom

asked her to get green onions for dinner,

but that was two years ago.

about the poet

Alex Deng was born in Guangzhou and raised in Toronto. Alex has appeared in the anthology Chickenscratch 2024, Ricepaper Magazine, and is forthcoming in Canadian Literature. He is working toward his MA in English (Public Texts) at Trent University. He loves eating noodles and reading poetry, and you can find him on instagram @allexdeng