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