Matthew Hollett

"The Day After the Best Before"

The clouds over Halifax are the insipid pink of Canada
on old National Geographic maps, fringed red
like freezer-burnt meat. A sunburned crowd stares
at the harbour as if holding open a refrigerator door,
as if we’re trying to decide how hungry we are. Bare shoulders
clink like bottles. It’s still a half-hour until the fireworks,
and the clouds glisten like iridescent ham, as if they might be
going bad. The sun a dim bulb above a glass shelf. A cover band’s
Sweet Home Alabama drifts from a pub as a waiter folds a tablecloth
like a flag. A woman waves across the crowd with oven mitts
shaped like lobster claws. A man presses a paper cup
against his cheek, smudging a maple leaf. A flare of colour
over Dartmouth is too far off to be the city’s fireworks,
but it’s enough that boats slow and switch off
deck lights, bystanders tighten grips
on stroller handles and cameras. For twenty minutes, the crowd
grumbles like a stomach. When the sky finally explodes
it’s a quick forgettable pleasure, like remembering
there’s a tub of ice cream in the freezer. It’s easy to imagine
that what everyone secretly desires is the raw astoundment
of a mushroom cloud. Like opening your refrigerator
to find the processed ham replaced by the smell of putrid flesh
and the sprawling five-tongued nightmare of a corpse
flower, Rafflesia, its mouth Edvard Munch’s Scream transplanted
from the jungles of Borneo to your kitchen. Something worth
witnessing. Something strange enough that you’re forced
to ask yourself what you’re really hungry for.