Outliving Ambition
Finalist for the 2014 Walrus Poetry Prize Through the foyer of The Carlyle, playing dress-up in my knockoff goddess garments, open as a mother, as the gala fills with gods …
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Mount Rainier Twice in a Day
Finalist for the 2014 Walrus Poetry Prize What next? When I was half the age I am now, I watched a man pick blackberries in brambles across the road. Juice …
Read MoreVentriloquism for Dummies
Winner of the 2014 Walrus Poetry Prize Pine plosives, alveolar carpentry: my life, lived like an elaborate glove. Tilt my head, a pale seashell scribed by lathe, and listen to …
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Grizzly Hunter, Dawson City
A species apart, snaggle-toothed, speech full of spitty hisses. Horse-faced with a hangover, half out his mind. Gnarl-knuckled, forearms bark-thick with scabs. Laugh, a barking dog frenzied on a chain. …
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St. John’s Burns Down for the Umpteenth Time
Let’s say the fix was in. Let’s say history, being human and thus short on ideas, made change from an old bag of tricks. Say this was something reported as …
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Watching the Cop Show in Bed
Apparently, it’s very, very bad to let a well-dressed man into your home. An Oxbridge accent, coupled with the claim your husband’s hurt, and he’s from Scotland Yard: disaster! When …
Read More Part of the Main
You might say that a clod washed away diminishes the whole, the contours of the land effaced by saintly patience of the tide, which knows that in time its tiny …
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The Child and the Man
As a tot, inspired by some adventure In a picture book, you buried treasure Far in the back of your parents’ unkempt yard. You dug bare handed, and the soil …
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