spring 2016
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageUnavailable On Buying a Second Pair of Birkenstocks Pamela Mosher
I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Christopher Evans
There's So Much to Tell You On Some Good Days Alison Braid
Year In Review Starling Advice Amie Whittemore
All Bones Hunger a Home Algonquin Ashley-Elizabeth Best
air mattress the clinic printed off a calendar B.J. Best
A conversation with a massage therapist Francine Cunningham
Ottawa Hospital: Eating Disorder Ward Fan Palms Mallory Tater
the clinic printed off a calendar (radiation, day 23)
when we were first given this crate of days,
we wondered what miseries would hatch:
blisters, a bitchin’ sunburn, a scratch
so itchy even steel wool wouldn’t faze.
but mostly it’s a penance of appointments,
the clouds grudgingly grinding toward spring.
the sun’s radiation whispers it won’t bring
anything that can’t be soothed by her ointments.
so, each day, she takes a green highlighter,
slashes from top-right to bottom-left,
waiting for time like rising sap to release her.
it’s like she’s sowing a song even skywriters
could hear: that verdant, that bursting, that treble-cleffed:
she’ll be cancer-free three days before easter.