Poem: Headline

Headline (c. 2002)

Through the slick-slack wipers,
I see the transport ahead of me
Fishtail.

But what passes before my eyes
Is not my life, but my
Headline.
And what does it say, this epitaph
By which I will be known
To the City of
Toronto (if only for a day)?

Scientist?
Writer?
Singer, lover of cats?
Student, Priestess, Woman of Spirit who
Rode a mean mountain bike even though (maybe because) it terrified her,
And who once carried a canoe seven kilometers
Overnight
To the next checkpoint because she would be damned before she would
Quit?

No.
It calls me:
30-year old
Mother of One.