Article Category Archives: Poetry

Acadian Lines

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Acadian Lines

 
I left a light in the upstairs window. A beacon
for the driver in case the hot blue heat
blowing through rusty vents, silencing the crunch of
wheels on snow covered roads, lulled you to sleep.

I’ve pulled the rocker to the side kitchen window.
My teacup now as dry as the bone it’s made of, the cigarette a long row of ash.
My fingers struggle to add thrums
to the mitten, as stitches grab the needle tighter the closer they get to the edge.

The plow has gone down twice. Have you run into
trouble? Are you stuck up the Shore? Hitchhiking now?

Like birthday candles moving slowly down
a darkened hall, hand held high to shield the flames,
the headlights shine round the turn. The bus halts
in the center of the road. Yellow line, gone.

My breath, long needing to be exhaled, steams
the glass, but still I watch as you struggle to lift your
blue flower-printed cardboard suitcase. Orange hat pulled tight over unwoven braids.
Stiff polio-leg weighing you down.

But you have arrived.
Home.

watercolour painting showing a rural fenceline in the snow

This Item Cannot Be Shipped to a PO Box by Carolyn Gerk

Light of Her White Hem

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Light of Her White Hem

 
Light jackknifes the Beaufort, pries open the mountain filling with snow.

From the rear of the bus; from the bottom rung; from her under-brow stare—
the girl in dark glasses hunches over last night’s dream:
underwater hands shelling peas, a hinged purse, a receipt for an exemption.                    .

High school kids shuffle down the boat ramp, laughing
and pointing. Beyond earshot, the girl looks over sea that carries her,
over the land that carries her through school bells and schedule.

Halfway between decibels and disappearance, she rolls down
the window, lets loose her hair. Combs white snow
from needling firs: the world’s cold evidence.

Tangerine between her hands as one who beholds a winter lake.

 

painting of a girl with a winter hat, long hair, and one cranberry earring
Girl with the Cranberry Earring by Judy Parsons
 

Listen to Cornelia Hoogland read “Light of Her White Hem.”


 

Instructions for Lucretia

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Instructions for Lucretia

 

Take a spoonful of sugar for the hiccups
Dash his brains into his mouth
Map the stretch marks on your thighs
Stay grounded by looking up
Inhale the sky
Avoid long speeches
Call your mother, talk about the day you were born
Admit to nothing
Open the window and roll the sun between your fingers
Laugh until it hurts
Until you cry
Cry
Measure your comfort in crow miles,
the distance between your life and honour
Wear your jewels to bed
Don’t make or ask for promises
Slice open the underbelly of every cloud
Let it rain
Let them drown.

 

Ceramic book by Marla Benton titled "The Secrets to Survival"

The Secrets to Survival by Marla Benton (ceramic)

 

Listen to Hollay Ghadery read “Instructions for Lucretia.”

 

Crazed

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Crazed

 

To the author of the fiction craft book who wrote this prompt for beginners: “Write a short story from the point of view of a young girl being pursued through a dark park by a crazed man with a knife,” fuck off.

To the same author who followed up with “Now rewrite it from the point of view of the man with a knife,” please continue to fuck off.

You dropped “crazed” from the second description. Aaah, he’s just a guy, you know, who could be having a bad day, you know, he needs our understanding, you know, why don’t we look at this from his point of view?

Comparisons are amphibious, odiferous, odalisque.

Right now I have all the words. But you don’t have to accept that. You can revise at your leisure, as soon as I leave the room. I’ll send in a woman with a knife.

Not fair? Oh, here she is.

Photo by Justine MacDonald showing graffiti art of a woman's eye on an orange and yellow concrete wall.

Orange and Yellow by Justine MacDonald

 

Listen to Tanis MacDonald read “Crazed.”

 

Laughter

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Laughter

 

I wish laughter were
the last thing to go
but it goes
before hearing,
before thought,
before breath,

this bubbling thing, this spasm,
this wriggling fish,
half muscle, half air,
that flops out of us,
with a hook in its flesh.

I wish, one last time, I had heard
the collapse of the tent
of your expectations—
that gasp of recognition
when reality set in, and shook

you—the slow motion surprise
of an elegiac comedy
or bumbling profundity; the swift
kick of irreverent rationality,
or elegant absurdity;

the canvas roof caved in
and you, sitting wrapped in the fly
with your laughter flopping—
silver, strange, familiar—
as walleye or trout,

on the hook end of breath:
half live,
half divine;
half tickle,
half shout.

Illustration by Susan MacLeod showing an elderly woman and man. She has her eyes closed. Neither are smiling.

To the End by Susan MacLeod

 
Listen to Anna Quon read “Laughter.”