A pick-up truck,
muddy and rusted out at the back,
the driver rolls down his window
at the red light.
I think he is reaching out
to flick a cigarette
but he picks a rose
from a bush growing on the median
and hands it to a person I can’t see
sitting beside him.

At the same time they are talking
on the radio about the flood
and the hippo who floated high enough
in the zoo to smash a window
and almost escaped
into the Bow River

and all day
I couldn’t get them out of my head

the guy who could have kept driving
but stopped
to do something so tender
that I looked away

and the hippo
who had his own spontaneous
thrust of will
but instead of a red light
there was a zookeeper
madly boarding up
his one chance
to be free.