spring 2016
Table of Contents
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air mattress
the clinic printed off a calendar
B.J. Best
Ottawa Hospital: Eating Disorder Ward
Fan Palms
Mallory Tater
A conversation with a massage therapist
Francine Cunningham
Year In Review
Starling Advice
Amie Whittemore
I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation
Christopher Evans
Unavailable
On Buying a Second Pair of Birkenstocks
Pamela Mosher
There's So Much to Tell You
On Some Good Days
Alison Braid
All Bones Hunger a Home
Algonquin
Ashley-Elizabeth Best
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.