Birthdays
The challenge is not to blow out the fire. The fire should only shiver, shiver as if in need
of the flames of another fire. And the candles should never weep. They should have
wounds but never scars. And before you gather your storm, words must wake,
happiness must season voices, a group of lungs melting into a chorus of one. The
wish needn’t be wrapped in wrapping paper either. No, the wish should undress itself
until its clothed only in the flickering light. And as the darkness falls gray should rise,
fumes fragranced by the scent of your younger selves. See, the challenge is not to blow
out the fire; it is to convert that fire into smoke.
Another Lamb In Need Of Slaughtering
I imagine you walking along the edge of the shadows, using “Q-tips” to remove the
skeleton-layered truths about your ears, sticking a finger down your throat to expel
your blame-filled stomach, even warming yourself up with your own tears because
you’ve tired of fire.…
...continue reading
She pours through the doors of the coffee shop near the corner of Keele & Dundas like
molasses—alone.
—–Her lips are slathered in strawberry-pink ice cream; she hand-rolls a cigarette, her
hair knots in an up draft.
—–One by one, she opens a handful of sugar packets, pouring the contents on the
table; she puts a straw to her wind-cracked lips and blows out an outline of a mountain,
humming like a harmonica trapped in a hurricane. Her moist tongue then outlines the
shape of a hip bone, then the CN Tower.
—–Dragging her fingers along the linoleum finish, she recreates Van Gogh’s Starry
Night. When it’s done, she forces her hand through the white grain like a monk through a
mandala.
—–Everything is impermanent.…
...continue reading
We called them his fish pants. If mom threw them in the hamper at night when
Knuckle stripped them off, he followed her and fished them back out. When mom
tried to sneak in to his bedroom after he was asleep, he took to stuffing them under
his pillow. They billowed out a chicken-of-the-sea stench that gave them their name
and lingering importance that pronounced them before they ever entered a room or
left it.
Knuckle was the youngest of seven in our brood. He went through challenging
phases. When he was two he was a sweeper. He carried the broom everywhere and
swept away at the floor, the rug, our desks and our dog, Shana, who wasn’t as easy
to contain. She kept biting at the bristles, which frustrated him and got in the way of
his progress.…
...continue reading
Commemoration
Juliette sat with stuffed animals in the darkness. Her mother placed the cake on the table; a pink and white “9” rested in its center, providing the only illumination in the room. A droplet fell onto the frosting. Her father had just opened a window and finished taping another red streamer to the ceiling. He threw more confetti into the air, hoping she would become lost in laughter. Some of it landed on the cake, most of it on the table, and a few sparse circles covered the framed black & white photo of Elizabeth playing in a sandbox. A plate lay in front of it. Juliette saw the candle flicker in the glass, an orange streak of life in the space between them. They sat together and watched the flame as it danced around the wicker.…
...continue reading
—–At the carnival, my father holds my hand for the first time, his skin damp like a bed sheet.
—–The bearded lady is obese with a sleeveless dress that shows her armpit hair. My father
says, “People can be whatever they damn well please,” and maybe the bearded lady hears
because she starts tittering and can’t stop.
—–He buys me a cotton candy cone. I can’t help noticing how it resembles that lady’s
beard, only this fluff is pink. When I refuse to eat, my father snatches it away and mashes it
under his boot the same way he does cigarette butts.…
...continue reading
My mother is afraid for me, but my stepfather says, “If he wants to go, let him.”
So I’m on the plane alone. A stewardess with white skin and orange hair keeps leaning around her work station to smile and wink at me.
The man in the middle seat has gas and smells bad, like cow manure. He wears a smudged ring and I wonder if he’s someone’s father.
Where I’m flying to is flat farmland. Acres of wheat. Tractors and combines. In the winter the snows get so deep that locals drive snowmobiles on the streets instead of cars. I’ve never been, but I know because my blood father wrote me long letters that I’d find torn up in my parent’s trash.
When I tell the stewardess I’ll be nine in June, her smile lifts like it’s a hard trick she’s doing.…
...continue reading
There is nothing unusual about how we go at it. I’m up first. My morning cigarette. Up and turn the heater on. I hate the cold throughout the night. I hate sleeping in long sleeved shirts and trousers, but we cannot afford to run the machine for too long. I can stand winters here, though. They’re short. Quite. Then I’m back in bed, body cold from the air outside on the balcony. We don’t have an alarm. I just wake up. Sometimes she’s up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I am. A few times. Neither one of us can sleep properly. She’ll go read in the other room. I’ll just lay there on my back running conversations with deceased friends or family. Talking in fragments.…
...continue reading