Stain glass mural: History of Montreal at Berri de Montagny (now Berri-UQAM) metro station.

Claudia Lapp is one the Vehicule Poets who lived in Montreal during the seventies. Her poems are sensual, evocative and feminist. This poem from her book Honey published in 1973 captures the sensual, erotic and multicultural possibilities of the city.

Going into the city’s centre

in a snowstorm

to catch the metro

her ovaries sending blood signals

her breasts full-moon-full under wool

asking herself, is no one real

these chic career people

He ran to her, spoke to her as courtier wooing

they boarded together,

he was from La Bretagne

spoke Gaelic

detested the French

wrote Celtic music

(her heart was taken)

and getting off at Berri—

what difference he was oldish

with liquor on his breath—

he acknowledged the goddess

je t’aime, he said

her smile

her ovaries sending signals

her breast full-moon-full