{"AIPUUID":[{"label":"AIPUUID","value":"3f34dff6-a322-4fd3-8c8e-b86090a69f3f","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/terms#identifierAIP","classmap":"oc:DigitalPreservation","property":"oc:identifierAIP"},"iri":"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/terms#identifierAIP","explain":"UBC Open Collections Metadata Components; Local Field; Refers to the Archival Information Package identifier generated by Archivematica. This serves as a link between CONTENTdm and Archivematica."}],"AggregatedSourceRepository":[{"label":"AggregatedSourceRepository","value":"CONTENTdm","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/dataProvider","classmap":"ore:Aggregation","property":"edm:dataProvider"},"iri":"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/dataProvider","explain":"A Europeana Data Model Property; The name or identifier of the organization who contributes data indirectly to an aggregation service (e.g. Europeana)"}],"AlternateTitle":[{"label":"AlternateTitle","value":"Prism international 53:3 \/ Spring 2015","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/alternative","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:alternative"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/alternative","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; An alternative name for the resource.; Note - the distinction between titles and alternative titles is resource-specific."}],"CatalogueRecord":[{"label":"CatalogueRecord","value":"http:\/\/resolve.library.ubc.ca\/cgi-bin\/catsearch?bid=1215619","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isReferencedBy","classmap":"edm:ProvidedCHO","property":"dcterms:isReferencedBy"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isReferencedBy","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource."}],"Collection":[{"label":"Collection","value":"Prism international","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isPartOf","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:isPartOf"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isPartOf","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included."}],"Creator":[{"label":"Creator","value":"Prism international","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/creator","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:creator"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/creator","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; An entity primarily responsible for making the resource.; Examples of a Contributor include a person, an organization, or a service."}],"DateAvailable":[{"label":"DateAvailable","value":"2017-04-18","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/issued","classmap":"edm:WebResource","property":"dcterms:issued"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/issued","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource."}],"DateIssued":[{"label":"DateIssued","value":"2015-04","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/issued","classmap":"oc:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:issued"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/issued","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource."}],"Description":[{"label":"Description","value":"The following description is provided by the publisher:
NON-FICTION CONTEST ISSUE
(judged by Charles Demers)
GRAND PRIZE
\u201cDoughnut Eaters\u201d\u00a0by Diane Bracuk
RUNNERS-UP
\u201cSea Salt\u201d by Sarah Mitchell
\u201cThe Generation After\u201d by Ann Cavlovic
FICTION
\u201cFour Nocturnes for Left Hand\u201d by Scott Nadelson
\u201cPlus One\u201d by Greg Rhyno
\u201cI Thought I\u2019d Get More\u201d by Richard Kelly Kemick
POETRY
\u201cFive Excerpts from\u00a0Joy, breathe\u201d by Nora Gould
\u201cBreathe\u201d by Katy E. Ellis
\u201cSomething Funny\u201d\u00a0and \u201cSun Rises in a Chinese Hospital\u201d by Michelle Brown
\u201cL\u2019Immigrant\u201d by Patrick Warner
\u201cCycling\u201d by Nicholas Bradley
\u201cPetoskey Stone\u201d, \u201cFolds\u201d, \u201cI Find It Lovely That We Name Our Boats\u201d and \u201cA Hoard of Driftwood\u201d by Todd Boss
\u201cForget the Mousetrap, Build the Better Bomb\u201d by Angela Rebrec
\u201cLocus\u201d by Evelyn Lau
\u201cMade in America\u201d and \u201cA Glass for You\u201d by Derek Sheffield
\u201cautobiography of grief 1\u201d, \u201cautobiography of grief 2\u201d and \u201cwhat remains\u201d by Daniela Elza
\u201cNorth Street\u201d by Margo Wheaton
COVER IMAGE
\u201cPizza Pug 2.\u201d by Jonpaul Douglass","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/description","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:description"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/description","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; An account of the resource.; Description may include but is not limited to: an abstract, a table of contents, a graphical representation, or a free-text account of the resource."}],"DigitalResourceOriginalRecord":[{"label":"DigitalResourceOriginalRecord","value":"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/collections\/prism\/items\/1.0343623\/source.json","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/aggregatedCHO","classmap":"ore:Aggregation","property":"edm:aggregatedCHO"},"iri":"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/aggregatedCHO","explain":"A Europeana Data Model Property; The identifier of the source object, e.g. the Mona Lisa itself. This could be a full linked open date URI or an internal identifier"}],"Extent":[{"label":"Extent","value":"78 Pages","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/extent","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:extent"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/extent","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; The size or duration of the resource."}],"FileFormat":[{"label":"FileFormat","value":"application\/pdf","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/elements\/1.1\/format","classmap":"edm:WebResource","property":"dc:format"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/elements\/1.1\/format","explain":"A Dublin Core Elements Property; The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource.; Examples of dimensions include size and duration. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the list of Internet Media Types [MIME]."}],"FullText":[{"label":"FullText","value":" PRISM\ninternational\n53:3\/SPRING 2015\n\u25a0\n:\n1 PRISM internationa\nCongratulations to our National Magazine Awards and Western\nMagazine Awards finalists and winners!\nSARAH DE LEEUW\n\"Soft Shouldered\" (52:1)\nWestern Magazine Award Winner \u2014 Best Article, BC\/Yukon\nWestern Magazine Award Winner \u2014 Human Experience\nNational Magazine Award Finalist \u2014 One of a Kind\nPASHA MALLA\n\"The Actual\" (51:3)\nNational Magazine Award Silver Winner \u2014 Fiction\nJENNIFER MANUEL\n\"Urchin\" (51:2)\nWestern Magazine Award Finalist - Fiction\nCATRIONA WRIGHT\n\"BBQ\"(51:2)\nNational Magazine Award Finalist \u2014 Poetry PRISM internationa\nNON-FICTION CONTEST\nGRAND PRIZE\n\"Doughnut Eaters\" by Diane Bracuk\nFIRST RUNNER-UP\n\"Sea Salt\" by Sarah Mitchell\nSECOND RUNNER-UP\n\"The Generation After\" by Ann Cavlovic\nJUDGE Charles Demers\nREADERS\nLeslie Beckmann, Dominique Bernier-Cormier, Nicole Boyce\nConnie Braun, Jane Campbell, Rhonda Collis\nRhett Davis, Jaime Denike, Christopher Evans\nSierra Skye Gemma, Keri Korteling, Laura M. Kraemer\nJennifer Lori, Kirsten Madsen, Collette Maitland\nJudith L. Major, Claire Matthews, Karen Palmer\nJake Prins, Shannon Rayne, Mallory Tater\nRob Taylor, Meg Todd, Laura Trethewey\nCarly Vandergriendt, Matthew Walsh, Catherine Young PRISM international\nPROSE EDITOR\nPOETRY EDITOR\nEXECUTIVE EDITORS\nASSOCIATE EDITORS\nFACULTY ADVISOR\nDESIGNER\nCOPY EDITOR\nNicole Boyce\nRob Taylor\nClara Kumagai\nJennifer Lori\nSierra Skye Gemma\nDominique Bernier-Cormier\nChristopher Evans\nClaire Matthews\nTimothy Taylor\nandrea bennett\nRosemary Anderson\nEDITORIAL\nMegan Barnet\nMelissa Bull\nRhonda Collis\nElaine Corden\nTara Gilboy\nEsrher Griffin\nMelissa Janae\nKeri Korteling\nKirsren Madsen\nKirn McCullough\nSarah Richards\nMatt Snell\nCatherine J. Stewart\nMeg Todd\nCatherine Young\nBOARD\nConnie Braun\nSonal Champsee\nRobert Colman\nRhett Davis\nJill Goldberg\nSarah Higgins\nEllen Keith\nLaura M. Kraemer\nJudith L. Major\nNan Nassef\nRobert Shaw\nRochelle Squires\nTania Therien\nMatthew Walsh\nCarly Vandergriendt\nEDITORIAL ASSISTANTS\nAlison Braid Leveret Burnspark\nNadine Clark Maegan Cortens\nKelsey Savage Hannah van Dijk PRISM international, a magazine of contemporary writing, is published four\ntimes a year by the Cteative Writing Program at the University of British\nColumbia, Buchanan E-462, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1.\nSpecific back issues can be ordered from the Executive Editot, Circulation:\ncirculation@prismmagaztne.ca.\nWebsite: prismmagazine.ca\nCopyright \u00a9 2015 PRISM international. Content copyrights remain with authors.\nCover image \u00a9 Jonpaul Douglass, \"Pizza Pug 2.\"\nSubscription Rates: One-year individual Canadian $35, American $40,\nInternational $45; two-year individual Canadian $55, American $63, International\n$69; library and institutional one-year $46; two-year $72. Single issue by mail is $ 13.\nUS and international subscribers, please pay in US dollars. Please note that US postal\nmoney ordets are not accepted. Make cheques payable to PRISM international. All\nprices include GST and shipping and handling. PRISM occasionally exchanges\nsubscriber lists with other literaty magazines; please contact us if you wish to be\nexcluded from such exchanges.\nSubmission Guidelines: PRISM international purchases First North American\nSerial Rights at $40 pet page for poetry and $20 per page for prose. Contributors\nreceive two copies of the issue in which their work appears. Submissions\nare accepted online or by mail. Electronic submissions are preferred. All\nsubmissions must adhere to our submission guidelines, which can be found at\nprismmagazine.ca\/submit, or can be requested by mail at the address above.\nAdvertising: For details on how to place an advertisement in PRISM, please visit\nour website at prismmagazine.ca\/advertise.\nOur gratitude to Dean Gage Avetill and the Dean of Arts Office at the University\nof British Columbia. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the\nUBC Creative Writing Program, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British\nColumbia Arts Council.\nApril 2015. ISSN 0032.8790\nUBC\na place of mind\nTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA\nUBC\nCREATIVE\nWRITING\nPROGRAM\nA\nBRITISH COLUMBIA \u00a7\u00a7\u00a7 Canada Council Conseil des Arts\nARTS COUNCIL <35> for the Arts du Canada CONTENTS\njudge's essay\nCharles Demers\n6\nWithout a Safety Hatch\nNON-FICTION GRAND PRIZE WINNER\nDiane Bracuk\n7\nDoughnut Eaters\nNON-FICTION RUNNERS-UP\nSarah Mitchell\n21\nSea Salt\nAnn Cavlovic\n30\nThe Generation After\nFICTION\nScott Nadelson\n45\nFour Nocturnes for Left Hand\nGreg Rhyno\n59\nPlus One\nRichard Kelly Kemick\n70\nI Thought I'd Get More\nPOETRY\nNora Gould\n15\nFive Excerpts from Joy, breathe\nKaty E. Ellis\n20\nBreathe\nMichelle Brown\n28\nSomething Funny\n29\nSun Rises in a Chinese Hospital\nPatrick Warner\n36\nL'Immigrant\nNicholas Bradley\n38\nCycling\nTodd Boss\n39\nPetoskey Stone\n40\nFolds\n42\nI Find It Lovely That We Name Our Boats\n44\nA Hoard of Driftwood\nAngela Rebrec\n55\nForget the Mousetrap,\nBuild the Better Bomb\nEvelyn Lau\n56\nLocus\nDerek Sheffield\n57\nMade in America\n58\nA Glass for You\nDaniela Elza\n66\nautobiography of grief 1\n67\nautobiogtaphy of grief 2\n68\nwhat temains\nMargo Wheaton\n69\nNorth Street\nContributors\n77 Charles Demers\nWITHOUT A SAFETY HATCH\nI\nn some ways, the decision to write creative non-fiction is insane. On a strictly\ntational level, it's difficult to recommend: like poetry, it has to be \"the right\nwords in the right order\"; like fiction, it needs to come alive with characters and\nideas, to be shaped and sculpted in such a way as to captute the teader and whisk\nthem through a structure that is neither so subtle as to be missed nor so obvious\nas to be clumsy. The composition of good non-fiction, in short, comes with all\nthe exigencies and responsibilities which attend to any good literature-making,\nwithout the benefit (or safety hatch) of invention.\nIt seems equally insane to agree to judge a non-fiction contest\u2014to work\nthrough a number of finely-wrought stories of travel, work, and family, violence\nand survival, lives internal and external, and then to tty to rank what you've\ncome across.\nSo: why did these authors write what they wrote? And why did I judge it?\nWell, at least in patt I judged it because J was asked to, and they wrote it\nbecause hey, it's a contest, and contests\u2014whether for singing or for designing\nelaborate cakes ot for who can stay on an island the longest\u2014ate one of the only\nreally fun aspects of late-late capitalist society. But in fact I agreed to judge, and\nthese writers agreed to write, because we all knew what good creative non-fiction\ndoes when it works: it electrifies reality, letting us see what perhaps we think\nwe've already known at an angle, or in a light, that, in the words of that old\nfascist Ezra Pound, \"makefs] it new.\" (Sorry, the fascism stuff is a total downer in\nwhat's otherwise meant to be an exultant judge's essay.)\nAs it happens, each of these winning submissions traces over that most\ninscrutably familiar tangle of relationships: the family. In \"The Generation\nAfter,\" we see the way that the vagaries and accidents of geogtaphy and history\ncan work to reverse the dynamics between mothers and daughters; in \"Sea Salt,\"\nit's the erosive effects of sibling rivalry twisted through the prism of mutual\nincomptehension, and the love and pain that drives us to overcome them.\nFinally, in \"Doughnut Eaters\"\u2014my choice for first place\u2014we're reminded that\nsometimes our families withhold from us the very things which we most need,\nbut that, in the right (or wrong) circumstances, this absence can be the source of\nstrength and salvation. Although not without cost.\nPRISM 53:3 Diane Bracuk\nDOUGHNUT EATERS\nOtepping out onto my front porch one night to take my dog out for his evening\nwalk, I became transfixed by the sight of the man who lived across the stteet from\nme. He was heading to his car to pick up his teenaged daughter\u2014something I\nknew he did regularly from one of the few pleasantries I had exchanged with his\nwife since moving to this new neighbourhood after my divorce three months\nago. Mist, thick from a day of solid drizzle, rose up from the sidewalks, blurring\nthe brown-brick houses. Haifa block away, they all dissolved into a long, black\ntunnel, giving the impression that this street\u2014still unfamiliar to me, and empty\nexcept for this man and me\u2014could lead anywhere.\nHe didn't see me on the porch, standing absolutely still, watching him. A tall,\nlanguid man in his mid-forties, he strolled to his cat, one hand in the pocket of\nhis khaki shotts, the other jiggling car keys. His head was lowered. Preoccupied,\nI wondered? Or with the affectionate, mock-exasperation of the duty-bound\nfather?\nAn unexpected wave of bitter longing hit me. Mine had been a long,\ncombative marriage, my emotions frozen to deal with my husband's hair-trigger\ntemper, a switchblade that could snap out at any time. My thetapist had warned\nme that aftet I left my husband, and broke through the ice-hold of my defenses,\nother, long-buried emotions would well up. This would release the hurt of my\ndamaged innet child, she explained, which made me feel like such a cliche that\nI stopped seeing her.\nThe man's car was parked on my side of the street, a few doors down from\nme. Why wasn't he glancing up at me, when sutely he had to be aware of the\nintensity of my gaze, my whole being focused on him? \"He never does things\naround the house, but he'll take the kids anywhere or pick them up,\" his wife\nhad told me during one of our brief exchanges. \"My father nevet picked me up,\"\nI wanted to snap back. \"In fact, I wouldn't have dared ask him because it wasn't\nallowed.\"\nWasn't allowed. Such a whiney voice in my head, such an aggrieved, hard-\ndone-by voice. One that I held in check because I was turning fifty in a month,\nand was embarrassed to be dredging up childhood wounds. The admission also\nseemed so bizarre, an aberration of the natural father\/daughter relationship that\nhad set the embattled tone for my matriage, and would probably strike again\nwhen I became ready for another relationship.\nEven if a marriage is only a shell, a shell still offers protection, I had written\nin my journal. And here I was, resentful for feeling stripped so bare, so suddenly\nand irrationally vulnerable, just by watching this man.\nWhat would it feel like to be his daughter? To have love that you could\nnever doubt? That was just there, like air? That wouldn't be retracted if you did\npnsmmagazine.ca something wrong. Used the wrong tone of voice. Called him far too late, as this\ndaughter had likely just done, laughing, daring to laugh at the inconvenience she\nwas causing him by demanding, \"Hey Dad. Can you pick me up?\"\nStill unaware of me, he inserted his key into the car door.\nLook at me, I thought. See me. Walk towards me. Talk to me. Turn around.\nBut he didn't. And in his easy walk, that languid, mock-exaspetated, put-\nupon father look, I saw all that had been denied me, all that would be denied. A\nnatutally protective paternal love, one that needed to be certain of a daughter's\nsafety on a foggy night like this, when a person could suddenly dissolve into the\nblackness.\nMists wtapped themselves around the landscape of my childhood, a long-\nvanished rural Germany which was, in the mid-sixties, still reconstructing itself\nafter the Second World War. My father was in the Canadian Air Force, part of\nthe NATO alliance, an essential military presence necessitated by the Cold War\nthreat. From the ages of seven to twelve, I lived in Hugelsheim, a small village\nin south-western Getmany, about half a mile from the ait force base where he\nwas stationed. Everywhere, modern, industrialized towns were springing up, but\nHugelsheim was plucked straight from a Breughel landscape. Horse-drawn carts\nclattering on cobblestone streets. Storky blond German boys in Lederhosen.\nAnd the church, with its high, Gothic spire, rising in the middle of town.\nWe\u2014my father, mother, younger brothet, and I\u2014lived on Hauptstrasse,\nthe main street, in an old, pre-war house. Like virtually every other home in the\nvillage, it was part of a working farm complex. Our front yard was no suburban\ngreen yard, but rather a long, rectangular strip of gravel with chicken coops\non one side, and bams housing cows, haylofts, and ancient, rusting fanning\nimplements on the other No one we knew had a phone ot a television set. Even\nthe toilet in our shed-like bathroom was a luxury, for outhouses were still the\nnorm in Hugelsheim, intensifying the smell of manure, which was omnipresent,\npermeating both the village and the surrounding fields.\nOur family was an anomaly, living off the air force base rather than in\nthe Personal Military Quarters (PMQs) other military families lived in. But\nthen, my father wasn't like any of the othet servicemen. He was Corporal Al\nBracuk, former amateur lightweight boxing champion of Canada, once slated\nto fight Muhammad Ali\u2014still known as Cassius Clay back then\u2014in the I960\nOlympics. A tall, green-eyed blond who I once thought was the tiny golden\nboxer poised atop the boxing trophies in our house. \"Big Al\" denounced most of\nhis fellow servicemen as sissies who were dominated by their hen-pecking wives,\nand whose spoilt-rotten kids made demands that bis kids knew we were not\nallowed to make.\nChief among his \"not alloweds\" was eating anything made of white flour and\nsugar\u2014candy, Wonder Bread, pastries, and most contemptible of all, doughnuts,\na word he practically spat out. Instead we ate sandwiches made with wild honey\nand coarse pumpernickel bread purchased at the local German gasthaus. We were\n8 PRISM 53:3 also not allowed to do poorly in school of sports, to whine, complain, get sick,\nget fat, or ask him for a ride to and from the base unless it was offered. It was,\nafter all, only about a mile away, and being his kids, BigAl's kids, we could easily\nwalk or ride our bikes.\nI've read somewhere that childten are natutally conservative and don't like to\nbe different. Fot us, there was little choice, because in post-war Germany of the\nmid-sixties, even the most innocuous Canadian militaty family stood out with\nour fashionable clothes, new cars, and prevailing patronizing attitude of having\nsaved Europe from Hitler. Within that charmed bubble of being Canadian, there\nwas a smaller one of being part of my family, a difference I luxuriated in because,\nto me, it meant being superior.\nThere is a black-and-white photo of us, the whole family at the Basel Zoo in\n1965, swanning through a crowd of reserved Swiss. We are Canadians, the most\nstylish family these people have ever seen. Most of them are still dressed twenty\nyears behind the times, the men wearing heavy formal jackets even in summer,\nthe women in frumpy dirndl skirts. My father is plowing ahead, as he always did\non family outings, expecting us to blindly follow his lead. Which we are all doing\nwithout question, my mother tripping along by his side, my brothet a few feet\naway from her, me taking up the rear.\nIn this photo a few of the European families have turned to stare shyly at\nus, something I was used to back then. Why wouldn't they? Look at my father,\nso smart in his Banlon sports shirt, crisp pleated pants, and shiny leathet dtess\nshoes; my mothet, so chic in an aqua shift dress made from the latest Butterick\npattern; my brother, the all-Canadian boy in his Buster Brown shorts and T-shirt;\nand me, a \"swinging mod\" in my lavendet bellbottoms and matching pop top.\nI hold my ponytailed head high with the air of visiting royalty, knowing\u2014even\nat my young age of ten\u2014that I am privileged. Knowing that most Canadian\nkids weren't popping over to Switzerland for the weekends, nor did they have a\nhandsome father who was a magnet for admiring glances, a father who would\nnot turn around to acknowledge his family unless it was to tell them to hurry up.\nAnd keep pace I did. I can see now in this photo that, like him, my gaze is\ntilted somewhete in the middle distance. I don't have to watch where he'll turn\nnext as I can see my mother doing in this photo, het gay, tight public smile\nbelying her constant anxiety about making him angry. I am pulled along by his\nmomentum, his vast impatience to get to an exhibit he wants to see, the clip of\nhis smart dress shoes on concrete creating a reverberating rhythm of utgency.\nThat was me, a daughter who knew better than to treat her father like an\nordinary man. Never asking him to slow down. Or begging for one of the slablike Swiss chocolate bars beckoning everywhere from the kiosks designed like\nAlpine chalets. (Indeed, I had learned to avert my eyes quicldy, even disdainfully,\nfrom chocolate bats I was not allowed to eat.) I am also aware that I am being\nstared at because I may be considered pretty. But without an idea of whether my\nfathet thinks I am (for I have been told that I don't look like him, that honour\ngoing to my milder-natured, blond, green-eyed brother, of whom I'm jealous for\nthat very reason) I can't be sute. But surely these people would see a similarity\npnsmmagazine.ca 9 in my stride, the way I hold myself so straight, the way my brown hair shines\nbecause I only eat food that is good for me, because I am my father's daughter.\nThere is no photo of what happened to us aftet the zoo outing\u2014getting lost on\nour way home. Apart from the majot highways, European roads were not well\nmarked in those days. Driving back to Germany from the Basel Zoo, my father\nmissed a sign to the Autobahn, throwing us back into a rural Europe of the\nnineteenth century.\nOn this country road where we found ourselves after dusk, thete wete no\ncars, no lights, no sign that electricity had even been invented. Only miles of\ndark, empty fields lay around us, the smell of manure plugging our nostrils.\nIn the gathering darkness, my brother and I nestled against the shiny leathet\nseats of my father's new '65 red Rambler, as, swearing under his breath, he\nstopped and once again consulted another of the half dozen maps he kept in\nhis glove compartment. Where do you think we ate, I wanted to ask, but I\nknew better. We were not allowed to talk to my father when he was lost. My\nmothet held het head rigid in the front seat, ready to flash me a silencing look\nif I dared make a peep. But I didn't, partly out of habit, but also because I\nwas spellbound\u2014in love with being lost. Countries in Europe were so small, a\nquarter of the size of most provinces in Canada, so that within a half hour's drive\nwe could be in a whole new land.\nBut which one? Belgium? Luxemburg? Austria? Perhaps we had ventured\neven farther afield, even dangerously so, and were approaching a Communist\ncountry. Russia!\nSteeped in unknown surroundings I wasn't allowed to ask about, the\nlandscape revealed itself. In the middle of a flat, muddy field, I spotted what\nappeared to be two ploughed mounds of earth, but I knew they were a farming\ncouple. At ten, I had developed an eye for the subtle national diffetences\nbetween farmers. Germans were the friendliest, often waving when they saw the\nCanadian sticker beside our license plate, while the French flat-out ignored us.\nBut this couple seemed different, more suspicious, furtive. Pointedly pretending\nthey didn't see the Rambler with the lost Canadian family, they crouched\nlower, like lumpen mounds about to sink back into the earth. Did they think\nwe wete spies? Or were they old people, still mired in memories of the war,\nfeigning invisibility as an enduring habit? We drove past them again and again,\nin mesmerizing circles, and I was almost disappointed when my father shouted\nwith relief as he finally spotted a sign, and bulleted back to the Autobahn.\nThe day I found myself lost\u2014truly lost\u2014I had wanted to get home quickly.\nI had been at my swimming lesson on the base, and had seen a thick fog\nrolling in from the day's drizzle. Ordinarily I would have taken my usual route,\na picturesque countty road that curved past the PMQs and a sttetch of the\nBlack Forest before Turning towatd Hugelsheim, the church steeple reassuringly\nannouncing the town's presence. But this particular route\u2014a new paved road\nlinking the base and town, which my fathet drove back and forth to work every\nday\u2014was more direct, a twenty-minute walk at most.\n10 PRISM 53:3 A ten-year-old girl walking alone is a relic from another time. But back\nthen, it never occurred to me that I could be harmed. \"Watch out fot airmen,\"\nmy mother would sometimes warn me when I went out alone on my bike, but\nin those days when \"sex\"\u2014let alone \"pedophile\" or \"rapist\"\u2014wasn't part of a\nten-year-old's vocabulary, she had never offered a clear explanation as to the\nnature of these threats. I assumed it had something to do with the pejorative\ntone my father always used in referring to men without rank. Usually single, and\nliving in barracks, these were the men who were out of shape and had Coke and\ndoughnuts {\"just white flour and sugar!') on their coffee breaks. Whenever we\npassed such a man on the base, invariably short and pudgy, without the smart\ncorporal's stripe on his uniform, my father would sneer \"Doughnut eater!'Tt was\nthe most scathing insult he had for a man. So why would I need to be afraid of\nthem?\nBesides, on that foggy day, walking on a grassy footpath that ran alongside\nthe toad, I had other worries: a surprisingly disappointing swimming lesson.\nApparently I hadn't mastered the front crawl, and wasn't going to advance from\nJuniors into Intermediates. My kick was off, too splashy and uncoordinated with\nmy arms, no matter how hard I tried. \"Naw, you still didn't get it right,\" my\nfather had said the one time he had come to watch me, and I was gtateful that\nhe hadn't seen me today. All that healthy eating, and look at me! I felt the weight\nof his disgust and how my failute to achieve this thing I had tried to master\u2014a\nfirst for me at ten\u2014would give me nothing to talk about at dinner. For our\nmealtime conversations generally took one of two forms: my father pontificating\non some new health theory, railing against the doughnut eaters, or my brother\nand I reporting on something we had done well. Otherwise we remained silent.\nThe ground was slippery, with scraggly, wet gtass that was hard to walk on. I\nwas wearing a sleeveless, white fitted blouse and a paif of pink pedal pushers that\nhad become tight around my hips, due to the fact that I was \"developing into a\nyoung woman\" as my mother noted. My still-wet chlorine-scented ponytail was\nclamped to the back of my neck, my bathing suit rolled into a damp towel under\none arm. I kept my eyes on the ground to avoid the puddling parts of grass.\nAnother failure, as within minutes, the toes and canvas sides of my runners were\ncompletely sodden.\nAfter five minutes or so, I looked up, expecting to see the church spire of\nHugelsheim in the distance. Instead, I found myself heading into a denser bank\nof fog, this one weirdly lit from within by a hatsh, leeching light. The road ahead\nwas barely visible, a smudge, which created a disorienting sensation, as if I would\ndisperse and become unseen as well. I concentrated on staying on the grassy\npath, because I didn't want to get hit by a car. After what seemed a very long\ntime, the illuminated whiteness thinned, and I could make out the road again.\nBut still, no church spire. Just a long sttetch of fields and the grass path\nahead. Grass that I was beginning to see\u2014now that I was focused on it so\nintently\u2014wasn't ttampled down by other footprints, and looked as if it had\nbeen rarely used.\nThe harsh hum of an engine flared up behind me, then became more\nmuted\u2014the car was slowing down.\nprismmagazine.ca 11 My chest tightened. A new female knowledge seeped inside me. I didn't have\nto worry about being hit by a car. I had been seen. And I had been since I was a\ntiny smudge in the distance, a lone girl on a road few people walked on. It was\na him in the car. I knew this because of the way he had slowed down to watch\nme. A car holding a nice family would go faster because they wanted to get out\nof the miserable weather and rush towards the warmth of theit house. This man\nhad no particular place to go, and was appraising me.\nKeep walking, 1 told myself. Do not run. Do not look back. Make sure you\nlook like you know where you're going. Any minute now, the church spire will\nappear like a reproachful parental finger rising in the sky, saying, Where were\nyou? What took you so long?\nBut only more fog lay ahead, changing as if alive\u2014light to dark, with an\nunnerving boxlike solidity to it, as if I were walking through a compound of\nempty rooms. Without turning, I sensed that the car was about five feet behind\nme now. Four. Within seconds, its headlights would be nosing my elbow. My\nsense of distance and timing was thrown off, but I now had a new sense of\nanother's timing: how long it would take to stop, grab, and do whatever it was\nthat men could do to young girls.\nMy runners were now completely soaked, my shirt clamped to my back,\nmaking me feel like a wet paper bag. Disposable. Like something that could\nbe crumpled up and thrown away. Why weren't other cars coming from\nHugelsheim? With warm, golden headlights, a familiar face that might recognize\nme? Or a hay wagon, driven by a kindly old German couple?\nOr, my father?\nFor the first time in my life, I felt an inversion of things. My home life was\ndeeply abnormal. Why was I out here alone? Even if we had a phone, there was\nno way I could phone my father and ask him to pick me up. And I knew with\na sharp, sudden pang, that the man in this car must know this too. That I was\nnot just a girl, but a disposable girl, one who was cold and wet in the fog for a\ndefinite reason. My father didn't love me enough to give me a ride home\u2014an\nunsettling realization to have at the best of times, and even more so out here.\nThis man would know that I had done something wrong\u2014or at least not right\nenough to deserve my father's care. He would know that a red Rambler wasn't\ngoing to come tearing out from the direction of Hugelsheim, screeching to a halt\nin front of me, with a man who looked like a trophy jumping out to say, \"For\nGod's sake, get in!\"\nAn ache\u2014a longing for something as simple as the warmth of a car seat and\na caring male presence\u2014rose up in me as the man pulled up. I suppressed it. He\ndrove slowly, keeping pace. Then he drove oft, the hiss of his car dissolving into\na welcome silence.\nTwo more cars pulled up alongside me in this way, paused, looked, then left.\nI had been walking fot what felt like at least a half hour now, maybe more.\nMy neck hurt from holding my head down, but I couldn't chance looking up\nto face the growing dread of the illusive church steeple. How much longet did\nI have to walk befote the grass turned to cobblestones undet my feet? How\n12 PRISM 53:3 much longer could I trick myself into thinking I had merely miscalculated the\ndistance?\nA particulatly high patch of thistles scraped my ankles, adding insult to the\nindignity of soaked feet. Then I stopped cold, recalling something my father\nhad once said. We had been driving to the nearby city of Rastatt, and he had\ncommented on the new paved roads that were being built, so new that they\nweren't even on the maps yet.\n\"Will you look at that!\" he had said. \"Will you just look at that! That road\nwasn't even built a month ago!\"\nFor the first time since I had set out from the base, I raised my head and\nlooked thoroughly at the landscape around me. Only dark, muddy fields\nstretching out on either side, walled by white fog banks. Could I have taken\nthe wrong road? Was there another road leading out from the base that I wasn't\naware of? One that, in my haste to get home, and with my natutally poor sense\nof direction, I could have taken by mistake?\nThink, I told myself. Retrace your steps. You were at the base, you saw the\nfog rolling in, you wound your towel mote tightly around your bathing suit, you\nbarrelled off at the checkpoint station. Did you see two roads?\nBeing lost had always been an adventure for me, those family excursions on\nunknown roads that could lead anywhere. Now, with rising panic, I considered\nthat I could have headed east instead of west. I could be miles away from\nHugelsheim. Miles.\nMy legs were so tired I could barely stand. If I could just sit down for a few\nminutes, I could figure out what to do next. Turning around and going back to\nthe base seemed to be the next logical step, but I needed something, a rock to sit\non. That round black shape across the road. Was it a mound of dirt, or a boulder?\nThe hiss coming from the distance was barely audible at first, but it needled\nup my spine. This time I turned around to look at the car emerging from the\nwhired-out horizon. Blurry, matchbox-sized, it was moving slowly, too slowly,\nwith an odd, pulsating brightness to its headlights. The light created two spangled\nwhorls of colour, so the car looked like a float in a parade, hovering above the\nroad in a kind of celebratory excitement.\nI looked away. This was the airman my mother had warned me about. The\none whose habits I suddenly, instinctively knew, just as I was undetstanding too\nmuch about men that day, one sickening realization after another volleying in.\nThis man had no friends. He had been lying about in the barracks, bored. Then\nhe decided to go out for a drive in this miserable weather because it was better\nthan doing nothing. This was the airman who wanted to do me harm.\nHide, I told myself. But where? Had I missed anything when I looked around\nme? A house, a patch of forest, farmers? Surely, if I squinted hard enough, I'd see\na mound of earth that was teally a nice German couple toiling out in those dark\nfields. The utter flatness of the fields, the absolute lack of shelter, made me want\nto cry.\nAnd now the fog was clearing into a thin mist, making me more visible. With\nnothing else to do, I resumed walking, those exuberantly spangled headlights\nboring into my back. Being followed by him felt different than being followed\nprismmagazine.ca 13 by the others, because I could sense now that there was concern in the way those\nmen had cautiously inched towards me\u2014they had cared. This airman was taking\nhis sweet time to prolong the excitement of watching me: two gangly legs jerking\nfrom developing hips, wet feet slipping on uneven clumps of grass. There was no\npoint in keeping my head down because I knew I was on the wrong road. And\nhe knew that I knew I was lost.\nTears sprang to my eyes, along with the bitterness of a new, sharp, personal\nfailure. This was the bleak, debilitating fear of being a lone female, and I suddenly\nhated this man for making me feel ordinary.\nThankfully I had no concept of sex, nor had I ever read any newspaper\nheadlines about bodies being dismembered. I assumed that I would be tossed to\nthe ground, he would throw himself on top of me, and it might hurt.\nMy walk was all wrong now, on the point of giving up. When he was a few\nfeet away, I abruptly stopped, not just from exhaustion as much as the need to\nget whatever was going to happen to me over with. Likely surprised, he pulled\nup to the side of the road, and after a few seconds, opened the passenger door\nand leaned out.\nWe looked at each other. He was moon-faced, with a fleshy chin nestling on\nrounded shoulders and small, dark eyes. Eyes that changed before me, something\ndeeply restrained leaping out, a trembling eagerness acutely naked in its longing.\nMy shoulders jerked up in contempt. A doughnut eater! Even without seeing\nthe rest of his body leaning towards me, I could tell it would be soft and pudgy\nfrom eating white flour and sugar, and I could sense his incomprehensible lack of\nself-disgust in that. His lips twitched up in a little smile as if he actually thought\nI would get in the car with him. I turned my head sideways, and saw, rising\nout of the mist, not more than a hundred metres away, the chutch steeple of\nHugelsheim.\nA few months later, my mother heard rumours of a \"bad airman\" and\nwouldn't let me go out alone for a while. Was it this man? I don't know, but if\nso, it was pride in my father that saved me. Fear of men became ingrained in\nmy psyche that day, but contempt for those who were not of my father's calibre\noccupied a higher plane.\nThe man saw it too. My scorn, my unexpected disdain, made him duck his\nhead back into his car, and in that instant, I took off. Running now, a gazelle,\nstrength returned from the sheer exhilaration of knowing that someone like him\nwould never catch up with the likes of me, thrilling as my feet hit the first\ncobblestone of the town's street, my fathet's daughter.\n14 PRISM 53:3 Nora Gould\nFIVE EXCERPTS FROM JOY, BREATHE\nThe funniest pan\u2014Hazel knew before I did\u2014isn't funny at all.\nShe'd follow Charl to the potch, then while he put his boots on\ncome back to the kitchen, stare at me, some days refuse\nto go with him. I assumed it was her arthritis.\nNeither Farley nor I know how or when\nwe both knew that we both knew,\nor what it was we thought we knew,\nbut with Zoe home to work on the farm\nfor rhe summer, we both knew she'd have to know\nbefore she was around Charl and machinery.\nIt was a Monday in May.\nI phoned Matthew and Bronwen,\ntalked with Zoe in her bedroom.\nThe slightest pause, she said\nI saw without seeing.\nprismmagazine.ca 15 Through all this, his goodness. I was not\nafraid.\nI wanted them gone, never mind\nthey were not loaded, rifles and shells\nunder separate key. His anger a break-through\nbleed. To know soon enough\u2014what state of undress,\nshoelessness, all that open ground,\nwhether\nI'd freeze, unaware I would again\nrecognize his face, him, a good man.\nHe didn't see the overtime goal.\nThe morning was foggy.\nHe didn't follow what was said on the phone.\nThe potatoes weten't planted.\nThe armrest in the truck was loose.\n16 PRISM 53:3 Yes. The night before. More precisely, early morning.\nIn the past. Needing to be documented, held.\nWe had watched ballet on television: Love Lies\nBleeding. Awake to the dance, he'd gone\nto bed\u2014sleep was quick\u2014leaving open\njars of peanut butter and jam; the toaster plugged in,\nready to create heat. A fire\nfrom a cigarette flicked out a vehicle window\u2014this\nwas afterwards, early evening on the day of. Carryover\ngrass. Smoke. From the kitchen it looked imminent, not\nmiles south of the hill. Had it been dark, he'd have seen\nhis downswing scatter flame, his water-soaked\ngunnysack quell it. In sparse stubble\nthe fire wasn't robust. Lost. All this after he rode\nto move the heifers. His dapple-grey, newly trained,\ntrotted up behind cattle, nipped at their asses. He said\nhe hadn't had a horse like that in forty years.\nAfter the ballet, putting food away, letting dogs out,\nbathing by candlelight, I had read.\nLater wondered did his memory come from muscle,\ncould he know beyond himself,\nhow knowing came to him, whethet he tried,\ncould try, to bid it come.\nprismmagazine.ca 17 I have an ectopic pregnancy\nin my mediastinum,\na space-occupying lesion, acephalic,\nthat bulges into my throat, kicks\nat my ventricles, obstructs breath.\nI'm expecting a long gestation.\nIf I outlive Charl, when he dies\nmy grief will be stillborn\u2014\nI will grieve him\nand my lack of grief.\n18 PRISM 53:3 I am writing to you from inside this,\nmy confusion. You will recognize yourself.\nI don't know you, who you are, how to find you,\nbut I know I am a person while I am with you.\nPlease forgive all the simple declarative sentences-\nI am exhausted, lonely for you. Your refusal\u2014\nI didn't know I had asked, was it something\nI said? body language?\u2014told me what I carry,\nhow impossible it would be.\nIf you wete to hold me, let me hold you\u2014\nthese are two different things\u2014\ncould eithet of us allow either?\nI miss Charl. That is\nwhere I would be, where I am anyway,\nnot in his arms. This is not\nguilt or impropriety.\nCaffeine-tired, I can't sort this out\nin a coffee shop\nfar enough from home to know that\nit is not ttue. Charl is himself,\nat the fatm\u2014he will still grab his chin\nin mock consternation.\nThe shelf above the potato pail is\nundisturbed. This is all my fault.\nI will go home and Charl will be himself.\nHe is himself. That's the thing. He is.\nI miss you. I miss\nthe possibility of you,\nus.\nI am in a hay field, snow gathering\nin folds and creases\u2014my coat sleeves.\nprismmagazine.ca 19 KatjE. Ellis\nBREATHE\nSometimes I think too much about breathing\nand picture the words: Inhale. Exhale.\nThink of a small country store,\nsign on the door says We're open! Come on inhale!\nThink of a city bus window\nundetscored by the words Emergency Exhale.\nI try bringing air in through my nose,\nand when I open my mouth\nthe used air fogs a window in front of me.\nI write mine or someone else's name.\nThey say they have to euthanize the California sea lions\nthat swim near the mouth of the Columbia\nruining the expensive Chinook salmon recovery program\nby gorging themselves on the endangered fish.\nI try not to think about what gives and what takes.\nI tty to breathe easy. I try to\u2014\nThink of a door that says We're open! Come on inhale!\nThink of a window that says Emergency Exhale.\n20 PRISM 53:3 Sarah Mitchell\nSEA SALT\n1 he barnacles live unfenced, uncornered, and unparalleled\nI grew up in a grey house by the sea. The house inhaled salt every morning\nand expelled it every night. When the cedar trees swayed with beach winds, the\nwindows of the kitchen, lidded like eyes, protected us from the sting. When the\nhorizon splintered the sun's descent, we walked to the shoreline and watched\nbarnacles flick their little tongues in and out underwater. When frogs overtook\nthe road's ditches in the summer, we settled on beached logs and listened to the\ncroaks as we slapped mosquitoes off our arms and antennaed beach bugs off our\nlegs. We grew up there, on that beach and in that house. The three of us did:\nNicholas, the eldest, with tusted curls and carefully chosen words; Kate, the\nmiddle child, with flame-soaked ringlets and words that bubbled with spunk;\nand me, the baby, with blond pin-straights and words that cut, that snared\nothers and ripped them to pieces.\nIf I could\nIf I were to lie, I would say I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to wound\nanyone, least of all you. But we both know you see right through me. We both know\nI meant to. We both know I cut you, damaged you. And this is nothing if not a place\nfor truth.\nHermans\nNicholas cut Kate's hair when we were young, not once but twice, but only\nbecause we asked. He threw open the door of my bedroom so hard that the\nspring broke and the doorknob punched a hole through the drywall, but only\nbecause we asked. He shoved glow-in-the-dark marbles up his nose and chased\nus up and down the pitch-black staircase\u2014we didn't ask for that. When he was\nangry, he screamed and threw books and lamps and plates and punches. Our\nlittle legs carried us away into corners while my mother and father tried to stop\nhim, to hush him, to help. We didn't ask for that. But he didn't either\nWe grew in our backyard, spent afternoons and evenings climbing the\ncedars. Kare and I bartered huckleberries for one of Nicholas's piggyback rides\nand made stew out of mushy moss, pond water, and a stray nut or bolt from my\nfather's garage. 1 was pethaps five or six when I realized wood bugs terrified me,\ninstilling a fear deeper than monstets or strangets or the dark. When 1 noticed a\nwood bug, I wailed the sort of wail that made a brother come running to soothe\nmy shakes and wipe my tears. He always came running.\nIn the winter, when our father heated the house with the woodstove, we\nhad stacks of firewood in the shed. Fir and yellow cedar and the occasional alder\nlog. Insects of all kinds thrived in the tower of wood\u2014evetything needs shelter,\nprismmagazine.ca 21 after all. But that meant the shed crawled with dangerous masses of wood bugs.\nI couldn't go inside it.\nI remember so clearly. Nicholas was twelve, and I was six, and I stood on the\nnarrow pathway between the house and the shed, snot and tears dripping onto\nthe concrete. He crouched down, coaxed a wood bug into his palm. He cupped\nhis hands and catried it to me. I remember crying. I remember his earnest tone.\n\"No, it's okay, Sarah. It's Herman. See?\"\nHe opened his hands. A wood bug curled in on itself, a ball of grey shell,\nfrightened and alone. It slowly unfurled, little legs waving in the air. Sometimes\nthey have trouble getting back on their feet. He flipped it over and it wove\nthrough his fingers, eventually fell and skittered away. \"They're just little\nHermans, all of them,\" Nicholas said. \"Hermans, like friends.\"\nI don't remember whether it took minutes or hours after that. What I do\nremember is later that day, I held a Herman in my hand, then another, then\nanother. To this day, Nicholas still calls wood bugs Hermans. I didn't ask for\nthat, but he gave it to me anyway.\nWhatever it means\nNicholas is autistic. For all my life, others have met this news with furrowed\nbrows and declarations. But he's normal, said one friend. But he doesn't drool or\nanything, said another. I explain over and over that yes, if you were to look at him,\nyou wouldn't know; yes, he is high-functioning autistic, which is similar to but not\ninterchangeable with Asperger's; yes, he is very lucky to be able to function in the\nworld, yes, very, very lucky. I say nothing else because it would take a lifetime to\nexplain what this means to someone who has heard of autism only once or twice\nin their life, or someone else who tries to convince me that vaccines (without-\na-doubt-scientifically-proven-celebrity-confirmed) cause autism (for the record,\nthey don't). It would take a lifetime, a lifetime that isn't even mine. I say nothing\nelse because no one, other than my sister, knows what it meant to grow up with\nmy brother. I say nothing because no one, other than Nicholas, knows what high-\nfunctioning autism means to him.\nLf I could say\nAs a child, when I lay in bed and listened to the waves pound the shore, I used to\nimagine that you lay awake too. I used to imagine that you heard the same waves,\nthat we would sneak down the stairs together, tiptoe out the front door and run to the\nbeach. You could show me how to skip rocks across the water, watch them fly once,\ntwice, three times. I used to imagine you'd fall asleep smiling.\nTwo-toned\nThirteen years after the fact, I asked my mother why Nicholas had been on antidepressants. She said, rubber-gloved hands deep in a sink full of dirty water,\n\"Learning you're autistic can be devastating.\"\nHis pills were organized into fenced receptacles that squated the days into\nlines and corners. This box was Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday and\nThursday and Friday until all the days came and went and the cycle began\n22 PRISM 53:3 again. They were made only of manufactured powder and gel that melted in the\nstomach, broken into nothing by the body's defenses, but even so: they dissolved\nin him and changed who he was, what he felt. The pills were two-toned, split\nin half by kelly green and the distinct shade of rotting corn. Every night, my\nfather opened the cabinet above the cutting board, snapped open a Monday or\na Tuesday or a Wednesday, tucked a Prozac into chocolate pudding and said,\n\"Nicholas, it's time to take your pills.\"\nNicholas hated them, refused to swallow the capsules until he and my\nparents remained at a stalemate late into the night. It was my mother who had\nthought to tuck the pills into pudding, hoping that would make it easier for\nhim to choke them down. It did, at first. Fourteen years later, he still can't eat\nchocolate pudding.\nNicholas was twelve when he started taking the antidepressants. I was six and\nknew only that, when the time came fot him to take his medication every night,\nKate and I had to make ourselves scarce. Sometimes we didn't clambet out of\nthe way in time and witnessed him as he choked down a spoonful of pudding,\nwitnessed my father and mother as they encouraged him to swallow, in nearly as\nmuch pain as he was, witnessed him as he saw us and opened his velvet-coated\nlips to scream and swear and yell. So we learned and we hid, and we knew, even\nthen: our family is not like any other.\nErosion\nNicholas and I fought. After I hit pubetty, we fought and fought. It didn't really\nmatter about what. We picked something, drew a line, and threw words at each\nothet, ignored the sting that we each inflicted and received. We pretended that\nwhat we said didn't hurt. \"Siblings fight,\" my mother said. Maybe this was ttue.\nMaybe it should be said that Kate and I fought too, that all brothers and sisters\nfight. But when the kitchen windows were left open and salt blew into our\nhouse, the sting ate away our edges and left us raw.\nIf I could say this,\nDo you remember when you visited me at kindergarten lunchtime? Do you remember\nwhen I ran on the school field and the wind blew in my eyes, made them water'! My\ncheeks dripped, unsalted. A different kind of tears. I remember you. You took my\nshoulders in both hands and asked me over and over, 'Are you okay! Are you hurt!\"\nBut most of all I remember the look in your eye, the set of your mouth. Most of all, I\nremember feeling protected.\nSticks and stones\nHe was seventeen, then, and I was eleven, and I hid in my room when I came\nhome from school because the air felt thick and heavy and dangerous. I didn't\nknow why, but I knew enough to read the signs. Sometimes, if the wind gusted,\nwe could hear the waves pound like a hammer on ice. Sea salt made my teeth\nache and so I tossed my backpack, ran up the stairs, closed the doot. Nicholas's\nbedroom door was also closed, which didn't seem uncommon; what was\nuncommon, though, were the scrapes and rapid-thunder crashes, a crack here,\nprismmagazine.ca 23 a beat there. The noises knotted together on his side of the wall. He had moved\nfurniture. He had barricaded his door.\nWe didn't see him that evening, or the next. Friday and Saturday passed and\nalready it was Sunday and he hadn't come out of his room once. My mother and\nfather took turns knocking, asking, \"Nicholas? Please come out? We don't have\nto talk.\" He answered with eithet a shout of expletives or silence. My parents\nwhispered at the kitchen table. My sister and I sat in silence on the couch.\nThen the phone rang, and when my mother answered, the caller's voice\u2014\nangry and loud\u2014shot oft like a gun at a horse race. I heard the woman's words,\nbut only some, from my vantage point on the couch. We all did. \"Your son broke\nmy son's finger.\" Pause. Repeat. \"They were in the woodshop at school. Your son\nbroke my son's finger.\" Inhalation. \"Are you there? Excuse me? Your son broke my\nson's finger!\"\nLater, my mother knocked on Nicholas's door again. He moved the furniture,\nthe scrapes and crashes a little more calm, a little less frantic. He told her what\nhad happened, fingers in a knot. \"They called me retarded,\" he said. \"They called\nme retarded.\"\nA sum of five parts\nMy mother and I drove down the toad to our quiet grey house. The sea slowed\nto a calm on the far side of the cedar trees. My stomach rolled and lurched with\nthe van's movements. We turned into our dirt driveway and my teeth chattered. I\nwasn't cold, but in shock: we were coming back from the hospital. \"The anesthetic\nmight make you feel a little woozy for the next couple hours,\" the nurse had told\nmy mother before we left. I had been operated on, a minor surgery on my leg.\nThough it went off without a hitch, my family and I were terrified.\nMy mother helped me limp out of the car, past the shed and the Hermans,\ninto the laundry room where Kate and Nicholas hovered. Gingerly, they\nsupported my weight up the next three staits into the living room, set me down\non the floral couch, and examined me.\n\"Mom will be mad if you throw up on the carpet,\" Kate said matter-of-factly.\n\"Kate,\" Nicholas said, his voice a scowl. Both of us should have known then\nthat his teprimand was nothing but smoke. He leaned forward and squinted,\nwatched my teeth chatter and my hands shake. Apparently I was in decent\nenough shape to be made fun of: reaching over to my father's 4x4 magazine,\nhe pulled out a cue-card advertisement and tenderly inched the edge between\nmy teeth. The other end waggled in perfect synchronicity to my chattering. He\nsnickered.\nKate covered her mouth with one hand, but a giggle slipped out. My mother,\nback from the car, guffawed. My father thumped up the back porch, peered into\nthe living room through the sliding glass door, and snorted.\nWhite-knuckled stars\nFifteen, and the world spun. I sat on the damp ground in front of a retirement\nhome, swaying and far too dtunk. Hidden behind clouds, the moon seemed to\nswing in the night sky. My rum-soaked breath puffed into steam, then nothing.\n24 PRISM 53:3 My mother had given me her cellphone for the evening; she and my father\nthought I was at the movies, probably bending their rules by drinking a Coke\nand eating buttered popcorn. Instead, I snapped their rules in half by taking\nswigs from a bottle of Sailor Jerry's with a boy.\nTwo hours earlier, I had felt rebellious and free. Now, I felt sick, and not\nonly because of the rum that sloshed in my belly, but also because the boy had\nbegun to look at me with hungry eyes, had begun to allow his hands to wander\nmore and more, and had seemingly grown deaf to the word \"no.\" So I pulled out\nmy mother's phone and scrabbled the only number I could think of, croaked,\n\"Can you please pick me up?\" I stood and wobbled, gravel in my palms and fire\nin my belly. The boy fled. An elderly man walked out the home's creaking front\ndoor and narrowed his eyes. We swayed togethet for a moment, thirty feet apart,\nbefote he shuffled back inside. When Nicholas, twenty-one now, roared up in his\nFord Focus, I didn't tell him what happened. I didn't say anything but I think he\nknew anyway, I think he could tell, because the only thing I remember from the\ndrive home is his hands white-knuckling the wheel.\nIf I could say this, if I could say\nThere's a picture of us up on the wall at home. I must have been about a year old,\nand six-year-old you held me in your lap, grasped my hand in yours. A juice box sat\nemptied on our other side. I now know that you had held the straw up to my mouth,\nhad taught me my love of apple juice. Kate crouched on our other side, and in the\nbackground Dad's failing orange tree twinkled with Christmas lights. We grinned\nuntil our cheeks hurt. Immortalized, just in case we ever needed a reminder: it used\nto be easy.\nThe road and back\nNicholas and I drove to Pottland together to visit extended family when I\nthought myself mature at seventeen. A six-hour drive, just the two of us. The\ntrip undulated wildly between great and awful, between laughing ourselves to\ntears and yelling ourselves hoarse. We commiserated with each other about our\nmother's questions on our love lives, then tore each other's love lives to pieces.\nWe stopped for food and bought sandwiches. I bellowed out the lyrics to Red\nHot Chili Peppers and he laughed at me. He spilled mayonnaise down his shirt\nand I laughed at him.\nWe argued with each other about music choices, life choices, any othet choice\nunder the moon. I told him the bands he liked wete stupid and he told me I was\nstupid. I told him we shouldn't have even gone on this fucking trip anyway and\nhe told me to get out of his car. The vehemence in our voices surprised both of\nus. For that trip, the bad times made the good disappear. When I remember that\ndrive, I remember an anger that ate me up.\nThings between us became especially bad after that. He had moved out by\nthen, but lived a five-minute drive away and stopped by the house often. His\nvisits never started with fights, but always seemed to end with them. The house\nechoed with our yelling matches. It didn't matter what we fought about. The\nsubjects were trivial, inconsequential: movies, grammar, one funny look. On one\nprismmagazine.ca 25 memorable day, I fled the house in tears after we nearly came to blows about the\nmerits of the women's fashion industry. Sometimes my mother tried to mediate.\nOther times she waited it out and talked to us separately afterward.\nI distanced myself from him. I thought it healthiest at first, that the sort\nof senseless rage we felt was never going to be worth it. Fot about a year, our\nrelationship stretched to its thinnest, eaten away by the sting of salt. If we talked,\nmy voice stiffened and he sensed it. If we looked at each other, he scowled and\nI knew. We were family, but not friends. We loved each other, but it had never\nbeen said. I didn't think it would be possible for us ever to be civil, let alone\nenjoy each other. That was the worst time.\n\"You're treating him pretty rough, you know,\" my mother told me. I don't\nknow if she said the same to him. \"He's having a hard time.\" I didn't think so.\nSalt\nIt was two weeks before my first day of university, and about a year after the trip\nthat had changed the trajectory of my relationship with Nicholas. My mother\nrapidly realized that her youngest had prepared to leave the nest, and so the last\ncouple days living at home felt bittersweet. I sat at the computer, double and\ntriple-checking that I had all my textbooks, all the No. 2 pencils I needed and all\nthe necessities for dormitory living. Nicholas came in through the laundry room.\nWe were the only two home.\nI can't remember what sparked the argument that time. I asked him about it\nand he can't remember either. Whatever it was, it was a bad one, and it reached\ndeepet than any of our fights ever had. I remember swivelling around in my seat\nto yell things that tumbled out of my mouth without my permission: \"Do you\nthink you matter?\" He yelled too: \"I'm your brother!\" At one point, I told him to\ndrop it. He refused. At another, he told me he was done. I couldn't accept that. I\nhalf-rose out of my seat. He clenched his fists, arms crossed, and stood too. The\nnext words I threw stung us both. \"Do you know how much you affected us? Do\nyou even care?\"\nWe stood there, chests heaving. The corners of my eyes teared with salt water,\nbut I refused to let him see. He deflated, sat down, and loosened his crossed\narms. His voice shook, but not with anger. With something I had never heard\nbefore. \"I do know.\" The words trembled. \"I'm just...\" He set his elbows on his\nknees and his head in his palms, rust-coloured curls dull between his fingers.\n\"Are you ever wanting to see me again when you're gone?\"\nSalt overflowed, ran down both our cheeks. I gibbered through snot and\nteats and spit. His cupped hands didn't hold a Herman this time, but reached to\ngtab the tips of my fingers instead. \"You're treating him pretty tough, you know,\"\nmy mother had said.\nWe talked. For the first time in a year, we sat down togethet, squished into\nthe same armchair, and truly spoke to each other. About important things. About\nwhat I said and why it changed things, about what I didn't mean and what I did\nmean. About what high-functioning autism meant fot all three of us. Kate came\nhome then and walked in on us. She saw my wet cheeks and Nicholas's red eyes.\nShe saw our hands clasped together.\n26 PRISM 53:3 When my parents came home, they found the three of us crammed onto the\narmchair. Nicholas and I gave a sort of half-smile (\"Identical,\" my mother told\nme later) and we all moved out onto the front porch.\nThe winds from the beach were strong. I told Nicholas three words that I had\nnever said to him before, in all my eighteen years. He said them back. He, Kate,\nand I sat on the creaking porch and there wasn't anything else we needed to say.\nThe house exhaled, expelled salt in a gentle breath.\nIf I could say this, if I could say this to you:\nI would hold Hermans for you. I would break that boy's other fingers for you. I would\nfly to you, run to you, crawl to you if you needed me. I would.\nThis, here, is what it means to me\nGrowing up with Nicholas meant that I never had a \"normal\" big brother\nrelationship, that he used to play fight a little too rough and I, at eleven,\nimagined breaking another boy's fingers in order to protect him. Growing up\nwith Nicholas meant that I learned how to duck and I learned who to call if\nI needed help. Growing up with him meant the realization, over the span of\ndays and months and yeats, that autism, whatevet pigeonhole high-functioning\nis scientifically fit into, doesn't define him, nor has it ever, nor will it ever. It is\nutterly subjective, and means different things for different people.\nHe's an adult now. It's frightening. He still tries to fart on my face or throw\npeanuts at Kate's head, but somehow, this has improved our relationship. He still\ntries to get under my skin, but I would be lying if I said I didn't do the same to\nhim. We talk now. About significant things, or not. The important thing is that\nwe talk. He visits me at school, and whenever I go home for a weekend or a break\nor the summer, we make time to see each other, to look, to talk. The house hasn't\ntasted of salt fot a long time.\nprismmagazine.ca 27 Michelle Brown\nSOMETHING FUNNY\nHere's something funny. A clamshell that you couldn't\nopen. In a market, and it was definitely funny.\nThe others thought so. They were wiping their\neyes with ditty napkins as they watched you dig yout nails in.\nIn the market, as the night was closing up. The people were laughing\nand you were angry because you wanted it so bad, wanted\nit all, the heatts and brain of it all together, and I was laughing\nbecause it was funny, so funny, and that's what humour is,\nit's funny because you're afraid it's true, and here I was laughing\nat yout stubby fingets, laughing at the woman scrubbing the shells\nin a bucket of seawater, laughing at the sea, that impossibility,\nknowing that nothing would ever be funny again\nas we stood up from the table and returned to the train,\nall of us laughing at you and the timing that death\nseems to have, lapping at everything.\n28 PRISM 53:3 SUN RISES IN A CHINESE HOSPITAL\nAs they roll out the dead one\nin a party of grieving hands,\nI look up \"death,\" my lung\nstill submerged.\nSi, \"to die\" and also,\n\"stubbornly.\" I don't know who is coming\nand who is gone, the grown sons\nasleep at theit mothers' feet, drank,\nas tear water drips lazily down.\nA woman laughs when I cough, two\nfatties. I don't speak well\nand so I don't at all. A man passes\nhis hand over his eyes. Night, and then\nit is not. I eat the strawberries anyways.\nMy sickness is obvious, mimes the language.\nI lick my fingers clean of it.\nWhat a long needle that night was.\nNow it is morning, so I remove\nthe word from my history, and kick\nover the chair, dust, all of it, death,\nthe man being born in the hallway, covered\nin light and blood.\nprismmagazine.ca 29 Ann Cavlovic\nTHE GENERATION AFTER\nJ. arrive at the embassy with documents, a CD, and a mild fear of not seeming\nPolish enough. Since my mother was born in Poland before World War II, my son\nand I are apparently entitled to citizenship. We are happy and settled in Ottawa,\nbut since my son's birth, I've been imagining the world fifty years from now, and\nI want him to have the option to reverse-immigrate to Europe if needed. Most\nnew mothers fear for the future, and perhaps I'm an extreme case, given my own\nchildhood filled with stories of war, displacement, and everything being taken\naway.\nThrough a pane of glass, I greet the woman behind the countet with \"Dzien\ndobry.\" My accent, honed from listening to my mother chatting with friends,\nis convincing enough that the woman responds in Polish. I then see a familiar\nexpression, a light going out behind the eyes, when someone born in Poland and\nolder than me tealizes I can't actually speak the language. I present the documents\nin English.\n\"None of your mother's identification cards are from Poland,\" she says.\nI recite the story I've heard countless times. My mother left Poland at\nage six to reunite with het mother, who had been sent to Germany to be an\nindentured servant. Everything my mother owned was left behind. \"It's explained\nin the autobiography,\" I say, pointing to the CD. There was a requirement\nfor a handwritten explanation of one's departure from Poland, but since my\nmother can't write for long, I recorded her telling her story in fluent Polish. Her\nidentification cards from Canada, England, and the Displaced Persons camps\u2014\nor DP camps\u2014in Germany all state her Polish origin.\nThe officer assigns me several tasks: all our identification cards need to be\ntranslated into Polish, a signed letter should attest that my mother's recorded\nstatements ate true, and she should come in person to the embassy, despite her\nhealth. If my mother's citizenship is confirmed, the officer assures, it would be\nautomatic for my son and me.\nWhen I come to pick my mother up, she is cutled up on top of her sheets,\novetdressed for this hot day, and reeking of sour sweat. I put my hand on her\nplump cheek, and her eyes open and brighten like a child's: blue eyes in that\ntypical Polish shape. As I help peel off her sweatet, I see the name tag of another\nresident sewn in the collar. For weeks she has been stealing dirty clothes from the\ncommon laundty hamper in the hallway. I toss the sweater aside, planning to\nsutteptitiously return it to the hamper, which the nurses have now moved farther\nfrom her room. She stole turnips as a child during the war, eating them straight\nfrom neighbouring fields. Although she's never since touched a turnip, she's had\nsticky fingers most of her adult life.\n30 PRISM 53:3 \"I was thinking, Ann. Let's not bother with this,\" she says, sitting on her bed.\n\"I don't want to get that nice German family in trouble.\"\nThat story goes like this: Once reunited, my mother and grandmother\nwere sent to a German family's vineyard, which was a relatively lighter-duty\nassignment, as far as forced labor goes. The German family paid with bottles\nof their wine to sneak my mothet into school, but she still toiled alongside her\nmother when she came home.\n\"Mom, it has nothing to do with them. It won't get them in trouble.\"\nShe grunts, and grabs her cane instead of her walker, despite my protests. She\nshuffles to the hallway, insisting het slippers are fine for a short trip, and calls out\nto an orderly: \"Hiya handsome. This is my beautiful daughter!\"\nWe slowly make our way to the car, arms linked. She loses her balance ttying\nto get into her seat, so I steady het hands on the car.\n\"Why am I so dizzy all the time?\"\n\"Just part of growing old, I guess.\" I've stopped trying to explain what\nAlcohol-Related Dementia means. At seventy-six, she's among the nursing\nhome's youngest residents.\nAt the embassy, I introduce my mothet to the same consular officer. My\nmother quickly launches into stotytelling mode in Polish. I know from the\nrhythm of her words, and the reaction on the officer's face, that it's her favourite\nstory\u2014the full explanation of why she left Poland at age six. At the time, the Nazis\nwere taking one male from every Polish family to work as indentured servants\nin Germany. In her family her uncle was selected, a father of five children. The\nfamily decided that his sister, my grandmother, should go instead, since she had\nonly my mother to support. My mother was to stay with her uncle and his family.\nHer father had died when she was an infant, and her beloved stepfather was deaf\nand could not take care of her alone.\nMy mother raises her finger, as she always does midway through this story\nwhen saying: \"As soon as the door was closed, my aunt treated me like a slave. So\nI decided I'd rather be a slave to strangers than my own family.\" My mother snuck\nout of her uncle's house that first night, and walked several kilometres to the train\nstation, barefoot. A young couple took pity on her and paid her fare, enabling\nher to travel to the station where hundreds of Polish men were being held prior\nto ttansport to Germany. Through the gate, she spied her mother in the crowd,\nand talked her way into an enclosure nearly everyone else wanted to leave.\nThe light is back in the officer's eyes. She is charmed by my mother, as\nstrangers often are. It gives me hope, but now there's another hurdle: that CD\nneeds to be ttanscribed on paper, a change from what the officer said earlier.\nOn the way home, I hear the dryness of my mother's mouth when she speaks.\nI spot a family testaurant, and park as close as possible to the doot. She gets out\nwith surprising nimbleness. Fiercely determined despite leaning heavily on her\ncane, she proceeds directly to an even closer pub.\n\"Mama, I'll buy you a non-alcoholic drink, okay?\" According to het doctor,\none drink could increase her cravings and interfere with her medications.\nShe winks. \"I just want one little shot, strictly for medicinal purposes.\"\nMy attempts to reason with her work as poorly as they do with my preschooler.\nprismmagazine.ca 31 Once seated, she relinquishes charm and orders me to comply, reassuming the\nparental role. I say no, calmly, and try to distract her by pointing out the first\nbeautiful thing I see\u2014a sunbeam shining through the window. She starts to yell.\n\"If you love me, buy me a drink now!\"\nThe waitress turns and stares.\nI tell her I love her and that I'll do no such thing.\nBeside my desk is a heap of documents, the CD, the card of the last translator\u2014\nwho's no longer in business\u2014and the phone book. I've passed by this heap for\nmonths, each time muttering I should get this over with. Now I can barely\nremember what needs to be done. This is unlike me. I'm normally an organized,\nmultitasking working mother. But I've been incapable of taking a step. Now,\nwhile spring cleaning and seeing this pile with fresh eyes, I'm annoyed. I call the\nfirst listed translator who works in Polish, decide not to care about the expense she\nquotes, and hop on my bike to drop off the CD. A week later the transcription\nis ready.\nWhen I return to the embassy, the same officer informs me that a new\nrequirement is now in place: I need an address in Poland to which all government\ncorrespondence would be sent. They no longer mail responses to Canada.\n\"I'm sorry, I don't know why, but those are the new rules,\" says the officer.\nIn university I became friends with a woman named Ilona, who had emigrated\nfrom Poland a few years earlier. I once made reference to us being two Polkas,\nand she balked. \"I think of you as more Croatian than Polish.\" Although I was\nraised with little connection to my father's culture, it's not the fitst time I've\nexperienced that perception. When I encounter Croatians they tend to look at\nmy cheekbones, and last name, and seek to lay claim. I receive invitations to\nparties, to visit the homeland, to take sides. But my facial construction and my\nlast name are both flukes\u2014the arbitrary dominance of one subset of genes, of the\nfather's name over the mother's. Had the coin toss gone the other way, and I'd\nended up with my mother's blue eyes and the last name Kupinska, pethaps those\nperceptions would be different, even though I would still be \"half\" Polish.\nIlona is helpful when I call about my latest hurdle. \"What a pain. I bet my\nfriend in Poland would do it though,\" she says.\nI have no family in Poland I could ask. When the war was over, and they\nwere at a DP camp, my grandmother sent my then fourteen-year-old mother on\na rrain back to Poland to see who had survived. My mother got to the border and\nsaw Russian officers eyeing her while stroking their machine guns, smirking. She\nturned back. But because she dreamed of going to North America, she told her\nmother that she had made it to the Carpathians, and found no one was left.\nI've heard this story, like all my mother's stories, a million times. But in all\nthe previous tellings, I was not yet a wife and a mother. I only heard it the way a\nchild would: literally and uncritically. Now, I wake up thinking about this story,\nand for the first time ask an adult question: what happened to her stepfather, her\nmother's husband, the only father she remembers, of whom she always spoke\nfondly?\n32 PRISM 53:3 I call my mother. \"Remind me, what happened to your stepdad?\"\n\"We were separated in the war.\"\n\"But Mama, remember when you went back? Did you know if he was still\nalive then?\"\n\"I assume so. Maybe. Probably.\"\n\"You mean you told your mom her husband was dead when he could've been\nalive?\"\n\"Well, if he survived that long without us, he would've been okay.\"\nIn her stories, my mother plays the role of victim and heroine. As I put down\nthe phone, I stop seeing her that simplistically. I can't imagine my own child lying\nto me about my husband's death. But she was a teenager who never had a real\nchildhood. Maybe everything is different in a war. Or maybe what she tells me\nare still lies. Did she break her mother's heart, or was he indeed dead, a deaf man\nalone in a war? I will never be able to understand her decision, a choice that led\nto my birth in Canada.\nThe house is quiet, and my son asleep. I tiptoe downstairs in the dark and see an\nemail from Ilona. But the news, translated and third-hand, is not good.\nAnn, I got an email from my friend in Poland. She said she can barely\nunderstand what they're saying in this very official letter, but basically, they\ndon't have enough evidence to grant citizenship. Sorry! They're asking if you\nhave additional documents you haven't presented yet! (I guess the answer is\nno!) They also asked if you tried the International Tracing Services in Bad\nArolsen (wwiv.its-arolsen.org\/en). I have a case number and address if you\nwant to write back.\nI click on the link. The homepage explains that the International Tracing\nService is a centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution,\nforced labor and the Holocaust. I feel sick reading those words, and cannot absorb\nthe lengthy and complicated requirements around requesting documents. I close\nmy computer, and slip into bed.\nMy son is hurtling away on a black train, crying, and I fling my body forward,\ntrying to grab on. I awake. My hand is stretched out above me in a dark and\ntranquil bedroom. My husband rolls over. As usual after dreams like this, I can't\nfall back asleep for hours.\nWhen I tell my mothet the outcome she says: \"I knew they wouldn't. It's because\nmy mother was Lemky.\"\nThis word Lemky is another thing I heard countless times as a child. I ask a\nPolish woman at my workplace, and she confirms that the Lemko, as she calls\nthem, are an ethnic subgroup in Poland who speak a dialect similar to Ukrainian.\n\"They're like Mennonites here in Ontario. They were given a hard time after the\nwat, pushed off their land. But they're more respected now.\"\nI make time at work to read about the Lemko, and their stories about war,\ndisplacement, and everything being taken away. A people of blurred boundaries,\nthey've been closest to the blows each time the lines dividing Poland, Germany,\nprismmagazine.ca 33 and the Austro-Hungarian empire were chopped into different patterns. Their\ncurrent territory is back inside Poland.\n\"The Polish and the Lemky kids both would say the roof of my mouth was\nblack,\" was my mother's way of explaining she belonged in neither of two worlds.\nShe was, in those days, considered a \"half-breed.\"\nWhen I was a teenager, my mother used to warn against marrying someone\nof a different race. But in my downtown Toronto high school, a pale Irish boy and\na dark Ethiopian girl were a cool combination. The distinction between Polish\nand these people called Lemky seemed laughable, incomprehensible. My first\nboyfriend was Filipino, causing her to panic.\n\"Think about what it would be like for the children,\" she'd say.\nFour months pass before I reread Ilona's email, and realize I'm giving up too\neasily again. I reply, belatedly thanking het, and mention I'll contact the Tracing\nService. She replies the next day.\nGuess what! Literally just 2 min ago I got a message from my friend that she\ngot a new letter announcing they are re-opening the case. They checked the\nInternational Tracing Service themselves!\nOne of my mother's recorded stories, as well as a legal affidavit, explain why some\nof her documents show an incorrect year of birth. To immigrate to the UK, either\nmy mother or grandmother had to be fit to work. But my gtandmothet was too\nfrail, so my then fourteen-year-old mother had to find a way to become twenty.\nThe priest they approached was initially unwilling to make a false attestation,\nbut when asked what life they'd have in the DP camp or homeless in Poland,\nhe relented. The picture on my mother's British \"Aliens Order \u2014 Certificate of\nRegistration\" shows a teenager with an adult hairdo, trying hard to look serious.\nSo the issue of my mother's changed birthdate stands out in the latest email\nfrom Ilona. It's a long message, translating all the steps Polish officials took, and\nwhy they cannot confirm citizenship.\nThey received several documents from the Tracing Service for a Zofija\nKupinska, matching my mother's movements through DP camps perfectly: an\nidentification card from the Polish camp Boblingen; an A.E.F Assembly Center\nRegistration Card; a list of people resettled from the Flandern Kaserne Stuttgart\nResettlement Center to England in 1947. But the letter notes these are all for a\nZofija Kupinska born February 2nd, 1927, not February 2nd, 1933. It seems\nthey have fotgotten about the changed birth year.\nThey also couldn't confirm whethet my mother was born in or out of wedlock.\nIf her parents were married, she would take citizenship after her Polish father,\nStanislaw Kupinski, who died when she was an infant. If not, she would take\ncitizenship after her mother, my grandmother, a Lemko. So does that distinction\nmatter after all?\nEven if I had a way to confirm my grandparents' marriage, the deadline for\nappeal is only seven days away.\n34 PRISM 53:3 At the end of the email Ilona writes:\nSorry my dear!! After all this, you sureyoud want to be a Polka anyway!\nI thought I had accepted this outcome a while ago. But it gnaws at me to think\nthe main obstacle could be an overlooked birth year change. I go to the embassy,\nand the officer kindly says she'll see what she can do, despite the deadline.\nA few days pass, and I receive an email from the officer.\nUnfortunately, we cannot help. It is too late to appeal ivithout further\ndocumentation.\nPoland lost so much during World War II. Above all, it lost so many of its people.\nThat's why, I had thought, Poland had a citizenship policy extending down the\ngenerations\u2014to get their people back.\nEvery time I call my mother she asks me to bring her a bottle of Krupnik,\na Polish honey liquor, her consumption of which contributed to het needing a\nnursing home in the fitst place. I am as revolted by the taste and smell of Krupnik\nas she is by turnips. But by now, constantly denying her seems a greatet cruelty.\nI wtite letters to her doctor asking her to let the old girl have a drink, and the\ndoctot agrees.\nWhen I bring that tall yellow bottle into her room, my mother's eyes widen\nlike a six-year-old's. She motions for me to slip it to her, but I give it to the nurses,\nwho've agreed to administer one \"shot\" daily. At that dose, it won't interfere with\nher medications.\nThrough the window, I hear joyful shrieks from the playground below. My\nson and husband are pretending to be monstets, scaring each other, then laughing\nabout it. I won't let my son see his grandmother around alcohol, after she last tore\nopen all our kitchen cabinets. He has just turned six years old, and I can't imagine\nhim walking to school unaccompanied, let alone to a train station to chase after\nme.\nLike a girl with a soda, my mother guzzles quickly, then smiles. \"It warms me\nfrom the inside, all the way down.\" She slides into bed, and tells me I am free to\ng\u00b0-\nEvery generation wants to believe they are doing better by the next.\nTucking in her sheets, I kiss my mother goodbye.\nprismmagazine.ca 35 Patrick Warner\nL'IMMIGRANT\nThe smell of oranges was all\nthat would remain of him;\nan odour rising from a plate\nin a fine hotel, the last strain\nof strange before it became\nfamiliar. This was his epigraph.\nDeparture came with a sense\nof peace. Newness nullified\nthe awful fact that he was\ndragging a parachute behind\nhim that would not detach.\nFor every yank, a yank back.\nHis attitude would forge\nhis itinetaty, buy his ticket.\nHe would not be arrogant:\nthat would lead to atrocity.\nHe would be brave, luminous.\nHe would pursue appeasement.\nHis marriage, when it came,\nwould be a divorce, a sign\nthat there would be no return,\na thought that reduced\nhim, made him vomit until\nhe felt he might disappear.\nAnd yet, he had to admit,\nthat out of this despair came\npromise; such reduction\nseemed to pave the way;\nseemed to say that all along\nthis was his plan of attack,\n36 PRISM 53:3 only now he understood it:\nto reject was to die, to refuse\nwas to die, to mock was to die.\nThe forfeit had to be made\nbefore he could partake,\nhe must fender from himself\nto be restored; he must not\nglorify loss but beg pardon\nfrom the life left behind;\nhe must refine, not excuse,\nlive this double life not as\nsaboteur, but as open door.\nprismmagazine.ca 37 Nicholas Bradley\nCYCLING\nCollisions concentrate the mind.\nThe first time, I went head-\nfirst into the passenger side\nas if to split the caf in two.\nThe Lexus spurned my bike:\nI made the intersection my own\nlittle Kitty Hawk, piloting myself\nin stfaight-line flight, a last-ditch\ntwist of the neck no good.\nI crunched. I snapped. A thick part\nof my skull smacked the black panel.\nI bounced onto the road and lay\nin the dark, on my back, in the way,\nconvinced of physics. The next time,\ndecked out like a racer, I skidded\nacross the street. Synthetic fibres\nmelted in advance of my skin.\nLater I scrubbed Lycra\nout of my hip until the clean\nwound shone like a new coin.\nAnd when a brawny trainee nurse\ncoarse-clothed gravel out of my shins\nand let raw flesh catch its wayward breath,\nneithef art nor philosophy\noffered consolation. Between take-off\nand landing, as gravity clears\nits throat, you await metamorphosis.\nSilent, solo, you hope to return\nto routine. This poem is for my mothet,\nwho wotries, and the drivers, God bless,\nwhom I remember each night when I undress.\n38 PRISM 53:3 Todd Boss\nPETOSKEY STONE\nA hundred thousand years old, you said,\nbut I looked it up:\nFour hundred million's more like it, Dad.\nStill, what's a couple thousand\ncentamillenia more or less?\u2014Man\nmight as well have stood erect\njust yesterday\nfor all he's come to. Doesn't matter.\nYou wanted to make a gift and you were trying\nto say it was special. That's why\nas our summer vacation wore on,\nyou sanded every day\nthe Petoskey stone you'd found onshore,\nsanded it smooth and smoother\nwith a fine black wet sandpaper\nto illuminate the coral core\nfossilized in there, and I was reminded\nhow I hated standing\nat your workbench as a boy, sanding\nsome work of hardwood, practicing patience\nabominably. After the tough stuff,\nthe numbers get higher\nand the sawdust finer and the pores\nin the grain take on a radiant sheen you'd\nnever dreamed was there. The pores\nin one's fingers absorb more and more\nof the finer dusts, so that soon it seems\none's made of wood oneself,\nas indeed we are, as wood is made of us.\nI hated that tedium, hated it,\nand yet here I am now, smoothing it down,\nthis poem, revising and revising it,\ndoubtful it will ever be done\u2014\nwanting to make something lasting\nof the off-hand way he gave that stone,\npolished to a sheen, to my son.\nprismmagazine.ca 39 FOLDS\nA bleat\nfrom the lost\nand shivering flock\nof migraine sleep\nand you've asked\nfor the black sheep\nwe call Baa\nwho went with you\neverywhere\ntill you were twelve\nand so from\nthe croft in your\ncloset whete\noutgrown you\npropped him\nwe fetch him, and\ntuck him into\nyour arm too weak\nto take him close\nand how thin and\nhow sweet\nare the peals that ring\nfrom the mountainside\nchapels we didn't\nknow were near\n40 PRISM 53:3 and that only\nyou can hear\nas you fall back in\namong the folds.\nprismmagazine.ca 41 I FIND IT LOVELY THAT WE NAME OUR\nBOATS\nand that\nsomewhere\nsomeone you wouldn't suspect of gentleness\nkisses\nthe reed-\ngold\nbristles\nof a brush\ninto the\nblood-\nred paint\nin the tin can cupped in his hand and softly slips its\nsilken\ngloss\noff\ninto the\ncurve of a\ncursive\nS or Wor\nA^and\nthereby begins the name at stern that steers a formerly\nunnamed\nskiff or\nsloop into\nthe calmer\n42 PRISM 53:3 waters of\nthe claimed\nand tethers it there\u2014knot by loop knotlike a pet\nor a mapped\nspot or a\nfish caught\nin a rope net.\nprismmagazine.ca 43 A HOARD OF DRIFTWOOD\nFrom a sandy stretch of Superior shore one summer\nI hoarded a store of tidbits plundered from the driftline:\na glassine shard of hardwood lake-rinsed almost down\nto carbon, a flaxen ribbon of rootstem flute-furled,\nan oaken knuckle uncoupled from the knot that once\nwhorled it, a gnarl from a thicker uncoupling laved\nsmooth as a buckle from ruckling wave upon wave,\na nickel of cambium written with rays as if riftsawn,\na rickrack of spoondrift pine turned ebon, a pillowy\nchip of pulley wheel or some likewise ligneous tackle,\nand a bindle of sticks spun spindle-thin, silken as scallion.\nAll dry-weight, drier than stone but thin as air, finer than\nhair and softer than skin\u2014as if despite the unintended sin\nof being broken down, they'd been born again, beauty-strong\n44 PRISM 53:3 Scott Nadelson\nFOUR NOCTURNES FOR LEFT HAND\n1984\nEvery night, after his stepkids have gone to bed, he searches for their shoes.\nThey might be anywhere: under the family room couch, in the middle of the\nkitchen floor, on the basement landing, or if it's warm enough, out on the lawn,\ngrowing damp with dew. This is one of his contributions to the efficient running\nof the household, maybe his most important contribution, though not the most\nvisible. If anyone has noticed, none has said a word. He performs the task quietly,\nwithout announcing himself, and takes private pleasure in knowing how useful\nhe has been.\nHe does, of coutse, have selfish reasons for doing it. To keep the morning\nfrom starting with kids shouting up the stairs and Cynthia shouting down, with\nJoy begging him to drive her to school because she's missed the bus and doesn't\nwant to walk, with Kyle saying he hates school anyway and why doesn't he just\ndrop out and start his own business like his father did. \"Your father dropped\nout of college, not grade school,\" Paul told him. \"And the only way he statted\na business was by borrowing money from all his friends and never paying them\nback.\"\nBut even more important, he likes the feeling of quiet accomplishment.\nNeither child has to ask, whete are my Keds or my Reeboks or my ballet slippers?\nAfter breakfast they just walk into the laundry room and find them lined up\nbeneath their coats, a generous assortment, left foot and right arranged in proper\nposition. The only mornings they miss the bus now ate those when Joy decides\nshe has to wash her hair in the morning rather than at night and spends forty-five\nminutes in the shower, undeterred by the water going lukewarm and then frigid;\nor those when Kyle, having forgotten to study for a geography test, hides in his\ncloset, or in the basement, or in the shrubs by the back fence, until Cynthia,\nexasperated, finally cries, \"Fine! Stay home and watch the soaps. What do I care?\"\nThe job is easiest from April through September, when Joy mostly wears\nsandals or slip-on flats and even Kyle occasionally spends the day in flip-flops.\nTonight, though, mid-November, temperature dropping to near freezing, he's\nguaranteed to find two pairs of sneakers. The first, Kyle's high-tops, he discovers\nquickly enough, toppled against each other beneath the kitchen table, along with\nthree shrivelled green beans and a stale challah crust. Locating the second takes\nmore effort. He passes through all the rooms downstairs twice before spotting one\nof Joy's running shoes: yellow with blue stripes, poking out from beneath a throw\npillow on a living room armchair, where earlier she sat cross-legged, crouched\nover math homework. Its mate is nowhere in sight.\nHe spends anothet half hour searching, twice creeping into Joy's bedroom and\nlistening to her sleeping breath until his eyes adjust to the dark. Then he checks\naround and under her bed, in her closet, and even lifts the end of her blanket to\nprismmagazine.ca 45 make sute she isn't still wearing the shoe. But he finds nothing. Only when he's\nready to give up, to accept the chaos of the coming morning, or else to leave for\nwork before anyone else wakes up, does he think to look in her backpack. And\nthere it is, along with her math homework, a sheet of meticulously written long\ndivision problems, three digits into four, the answers requiring extensive strings\nof decimals. He doesn't wonder how the shoe got in thete but rather whether the\nkids are aware of his efforts after all, whether they've intentionally set up obstacles\nfor him. And if so, are they imptessed by his persistence?\nThe real challenge with sneakets, however, isn't just tracking them down.\nIt's that neither kid unties the laces before kicking them off. Tonight Joy's laces,\nhideously chartreuse, come free without much trouble. But Kyle's might as well\nbe welded together. Again he wonders if the children know what they're doing, if\nthey have conspired together to make things difficult for him: tonight you hide\nyours, Kyle might have said to Joy, and I'll make impossible knots in mine. But\nhe knows this isn't likely. They ate as conscious of others' work on their behalf as\nthey are of gravity. And he knows, too, that it's better this way. Obliviousness to\nthe lives of adults is the gift of childhood, its crucial freedom. It has taken him\nthree years of step-parenting to understand this, or to stop resisting it, and now\nhe has come not only to accept but to savour it, apprehensively, wishing he could\npreserve their freedom forever.\nSo he wrestles with Kyle's laces, digging, tugging, teasing. He gets part of\none loop free, but then something catches it, and he has to ease it back and try\na different angle. From upstaits comes the sound of the sink running, Cynthia\ngetting ready for bed. Outside, the first flurries of the season bounce against\nthe window. The lace tangles. He feels sweat sliding from his armpits down his\nsides. His knuckles are growing stiff. He reminds himself that he should buy\nreplacement laces, stock up with every colour and length. If he had a pair now,\nhe'd cut the goddamn things off and statt fresh. But all he can do is keep pulling,\nas patiently as possible, while big wet snowflakes catch the light from his lamp on\ntheir descent.\n1988\nShe grabs his hand and pulls him onto the dance floor before he can think to stop\nhet. He has a glass in his other hand, the last sips of a Tom Collins Cynthia passed\nhim more than an hour ago, the ice melted now, the gin and sweet-sour syrup\nwatery and warm. He doesn't know what to do with it so he clamps it against\nhis chest and tries to move as little as possible to keep its contents from sloshing\nonto his shirt. But this isn't music that allows for stillness, with its hammering\ndrums and barked lyrics, not to mention Joy thrashing in front of him, all sharp\nelbows and knees and shiny thick-soled boots stamping the floorboards by his\nfeet. She might not mind a drink spilled on her shirt, black as it is and tattered,\nslices of skin showing through ragged slits over her belly, the sides drenched with\nsweat and stuck to her ribs. Her eyelids are black, too, bruised-looking, and so\nare the leather armbands that circle both wrists and forearms. The only colour\nshe wears are patches of red, white, and blue on her skirt, which she has sewn\ntogether herself out of hacked wedges of a Union Jack. Her hair, recently clipped\n46 PRISM 53:3 and dyed, is a dark shade of mauve.\nPaul is the only one on the dance floor not wearing black, though some of the\nothers have words written in radioactive-bright lettering on their T-shirts\u2014\"The\nExploited,\" \"Misfits\"-\u2014along with screenprinted skulls. Most of the boys have\nhair spiked solid, with pomade, he guesses, or glue; a few have shaved heads or\nshaggy bowl cuts. The girls wear ripped tights and pointy silver rings on every\nfinger, and they all stomp boots as heavy as Joy's. He has seen this set of fashion\nchoices for long enough now\u2014glimpsing his first mohawk ten years ago, on\nEighth Avenue\u2014that they no longer seem strange to him, or dangerous, though\nhe doesn't know if he'll ever get used to seeing them on Joy. Instead, the kids'\nclothes and makeup strike him as quaintly earnest, as do their grunts and howls\nwhenever the music stops.\nThese are Joy's new friends, accumulated over the past six months or so, but\nthe party itself is a holdover from her days as a ponytailed cheerleader on the\nMorris Knolls freshman squad, when she wore high-heeled pumps, lace-trimmed\nsocks, and knit polo shirts with the collat turned up. Last year\u2014a different\ngeologic epoch in teenage time\u2014she begged her mother to throw her a sweet\nsixteen patty like those to which she'd been invited by older girls she admired\nand envied, something as elaborate and expensive as her bat mitzvah three years\nearlier. And though Cynthia held out for a while, on both economic and feminist\ngrounds\u2014\"Why should sixteen-year-old girls be told they're sweet?\" she asked\u2014\nshe eventually telented, in part due to Paul's intervention. \"Is it really worth\nmaking her resent you for the rest of her life?\" he asked, and assured her his\nannual bonus would cover all the costs.\nJoy has since rejected, or abdicated, her old life and all its trappings, and a few\nmonths ago tried to get Cynthia to cancel the party. \"It's so bourgie,\" she said,\nwhich Paul took to mean embatrassingly ordinary. But Cynthia wasn't having any\nof it. Paul had already paid a deposit for the room and the catering. \"You wanted\nit, now you're going through with it.\" Fights ensued, shouting and slammed\ndoors, until they finally came to terms when Cynthia agreed to can the cheeseball\nDJ and let Joy and her friends take care of the music themselves.\nSo here they are, in the ballroom of the Madison Hotel, with forty-five of\nJoy's sweating, scowling comrades, and a buffet table spread with sliced cheese\nand whitefish and marinated peppers and miniature bagels, now plundered of all\nbut a few scattered pickings. Cynthia has spent the evening ducking out to the\nlobby bar and returning with drinks she half-drains on the way, asking Paul each\ntime if he needs a refill, though until now he has been content to sip the same\nTom Collins for much of the night. Why didn't he ask for at least one more? He\nkept himself out of sight, or thought he did, in a corner of the ballroom, watching\nthe fevered dancing, which has increasingly turned to groping, and admired\nJoy and her friends for their spirit, their willingness to turn what could have\nbeen a humiliating event into an ironic occasion, no opportunity for idealistic\nexpressions of rage or defiance wasted.\nOn the dance floot, he continues to admire them, is flattered to have been\ninvited\u2014or compelled\u2014to join them, at least briefly, and when the song ends\nhe pumps his fist in the ait along with the others. He expects to see Cynthia\nprismmagazine.ca 47 laughing at him from the sidelines and plans to ham up his enthusiasm, sneering\nand stamping and bucking his head. But she's slumped in a chair, chin on chest,\nher own cocktail glass, empty, on the floor beside bare feet. He makes a move\nto join her, but again Joy grabs his hand and holds him where he is, and this\ntime another of her friends, a girl with two tiny orange pigtails sticking out like\nblunted horns, sttetches out her arms to block his way.\nThe next song starts, even louder than the last, and somehow brasher, starting\nwith a chant, \"Hey, ho! Let's go!\" He begins to shuffle his feet again, but this\ntime instead of thrashing arms and heads, the kids are all bouncing sttaight up\nand down, the floor thumping beneath him, nearly buckling his knees. Joy has\na serious look, of concentration, maybe, or anticipation, her black eyelids half\nshut so that for a moment he imagines he's looking through dark holes into the\nmysterious regions behind her skull. Why does she want him here? What is it\nabout her life she hopes to show him? He gives a little hop or two of his own,\nforgetting his glass and the liquid inside, a few drops of which splash onto his\nfingers. But even then Joy doesn't smile, her mouth set firmly as she springs not\nquite in rhythm with the chant, the mauve hair looking almost natural as it flops\nacross her forehead and brows.\nWhen the chant ends and the song starts in earnest, a fast simple beat and\nalmost jauntily sung lyrics too rushed for him to understand, the kids keep\nleaping, only now rather than up and down, they're bouncing to all sides. The\ngirl with orange pigtails bumps into his arm, and this time he can't keep the\nTom Collins from spilling. Most of it lands on the leg of a kid who doesn't\nseem to notice, too busy is he flinging himself toward another boy jumping from\nthe opposite direction. They knock shoulders, twist, land unsteadily, and bounce\naway. Paul excuses himself to the girl, but she only bumps him again, harder, with\nher hip, sending him sideways into Joy, who, grinning madly now, gives him a\nrough shove with her forearm.\n\"Excuse me,\" he says again, though by now it has dawned on him that the\nbumps and shoves aren't accidental. The kids are throwing themselves at each\nother on purpose, shoulders, chests, backsides colliding. Some of the boys and\ngirls slam together and kiss at the same time, lips grazing or mashing, tongues\nsliding across cheeks and chins, and all Paul can think is that they have gone\ninsane. He is standing amidst raving, violent, black-clad lunatics. He tries to\nleave once more, but this time a limber pimpled boy lurches into him, knocking\nhim backward. He holds his balance and then loses it, going down on one knee.\nIt's all he can do to keep from dropping the glass. The last thing they need are\nshards scattered beneath them as they jostle one another. Worse than having kids\nbarrel into him would be to spend the rest of the night explaining to an outraged\nmother how her child ended up with twelve stitches in her face.\nHe isn't down long before Joy yanks him up, and then it's only a moment\nbefore the girl with orange pigtails comes crashing into him, this time chest to\nchest. And when she hits, her arms go around his neck, her legs in torn tights\naround his waist, het tongue flicking out and sweeping across his lips. He is so\nastonished that he teaches around to grip her to him, but just as quickly she bucks\noff and careens into someone else. His lips ate sticky, tasting of some sweetened\n48 PRISM 53:3 sharp alcohol, vodka, maybe, or rum, something cheap and diluted with cola.\nThe girl is drunk\u2014he recognizes that now. They are all drunk, of course they are,\nof course they've been sneaking sips from bottles hidden in backpacks lined up\nbehind the buffet table. Yes, drunk, not crazy, though he can't help believing still\nthat they have willfully abandoned their senses, that he has been brought in to\nwitness an ecstatic cetemony, primitive and mystifying. He doesn't think Cynthia\nwill believe him when\u2014if\u2014he describes it to her.\nAnd just as he thinks so, he glimpses movement in his periphery, black and\nmauve and the white of pale skin. It's Joy, chatging at him, not for a kiss but a\ntackle. Head down, shouldet cocked, boots lifting high. He doesn't have time to\nbrace himself. He catches the blow on the ribs. The glass flies out of his hand,\nand he waits for it to shatter But if it does, he can't hear it over a new round of\nshouting as the song abruptly cuts off.\nIn its wake comes relative quiet, talking and laughter and clomping feet. He\nis on his back on the hard floor. Joy is on top of him, head resting on his chest.\nHet breath is boozy, her speech slurred. \"You know what I always dug about\nyou?\" she asks. \"You're game for whatever.\" He's mostly sure she's mistaken him\nfor someone else.\nThe lights come on. Waiters ate clearing the buffet. He sees Cynthia's feet\nmove, then hears her groan. \"Paul?\" she calls, groggily. \"Are you still hete?\" Joy\nstays where she is. Maybe asleep, maybe just enjoying the movement of her head,\nlifting and dropping as he breathes. Where her hair separates along a jagged seam,\nhe can see sandy roots. The patty, a success, is ovet.\n1994\nHe's been working on the letter for almost a week, spending an hour or so after\ndinner jotting down his thoughts. If he were to compile all his efforts so far, the\nletter would be mote than twenty pages long, carefully handwritten, starting in\ncursive and switching halfway through to print. But each evening he starts over\nfrom the beginning and as yet has nothing close to complete. \"Dear Kyle,\" he\nwrites again tonight, at the little desk that folds out of the bureau in his office\u2014a\npiece of furniture he's had every place he's lived since college\u2014where he does bills\nonce a month and taxes once a year. \"First, let me just say how proud I am. Of\nwhat you've done, of the person you've become. A stepfather's pride is different\nfrom a father's, I think. I don't have the same stake in your accomplishments.\nThey aren't a product of my genes. I can't take any, or much, credit for your\nsuccess. So it's just pride by association. I'm proud to have been around to watch\nthis happen.\"\nHe has written these sentiments, in almost exactly the same way, the last three\nnights in a row, and he is reasonably happy with them now. They capture, closely\nenough, the feeling that struck him last week, when Kyle reported to Cynthia\nthat he'd been accepted to medical school at Hopkins. At the time, once the\nastonishment passed, the intense disbelief Paul was ovettaken by such a swelling\nof emotion that he grabbed Cynthia and lifted her, with effort, off the ground.\n\"I'll write to him right now,\" he said, without having been conscious of planning\nto do so, and without much notion of what the letter might say. All he knew was\nprismmagazine.ca 49 that he had to say it before the emotion passed.\n\"You could just give him a call,\" Cynthia said, but by then he was already\nhurrying up to his office and deciding which colour pen was most appropriate.\nBlack would be too formal, he thought, too severe, but after a number of false\nstarts, he concluded that blue was too whimsical. Tonight he has returned to\nblack.\nThe opening paragraph has always been the easiest, and after finishing it\nagain he leans back in his chair and gazes out the window, at the cone of orange\nlight cast by the streetlamp, the dark road on either side, the slick, tender leaves\njust unfurling from buds on the neighbour's oak. Then he continues. \"I know\nwe've had some rocky moments over the past few years,\" he writes, and debates\nonce more whether or not to refer directly to the cheque-bouncing incident of\nKyle's freshman year at Rutgets, or the DUI incident of his sophomore year, both\nof which cost Paul less in money than in sleepless nights and heartburn. He wants\nto bring them up only to show that his feelings are complex and deeply felt, not\nsentimentalized by selective amnesia. It would be easier to pretend that Kyle has\nbeen a model child, studious and attentive from the start, but to do so would\nbe to negate his remarkable turnaround, from a kid descending into criminality,\nor at least mediocrity, to one who's made the Dean's List in each of his last four\nsemesters.\n\"But I always knew you could live up to yout abilities,\" Paul goes on, deciding\nthat \"rocky moments\" are as much reference to past troubles as he needs. \"I always\nbelieved you could do whatever you set your mind to,\" he writes, and then stops.\nHe can imagine Kyle reaching this point and laughing a derisive laugh, or worse,\ncrumpling the letter in anger and tossing it into the wastebasket. In either case,\nthere's no chance he'll buy this line, Paul knows. He wants to buy it himself, but\nthe longer he stares at the words the less plausible they seem, the mote delusional.\nThe truth is, he didn't think Kyle could hack pre-med when he first declared his\nmajor, not even aftet that initial semestet with near-perfect grades. \"Wouldn't\nhe be better off with something less ambitious?\" he asked Cynthia at the time.\n\"Psychology, maybe, or nursing?\" Cynthia only shrugged and said, \"If he fails he\nfails. There are worse things a person can do.\"\nA year and a half later Paul thought Kyle was aiming too high when he heard\nwhich medical schools he was applying to, including sevetal of the countty's most\nprestigious, and wondered whether he should consider choosing a back-up or\ntwo. Had he looked at any of the second-tier state schools? And what about\nprograms in Latin America? Paul had once gone to a gastroenterologist who'd\ngotten his degree in Bogota. Again he said these things only to Cynthia, and\nhe doubted she passed them on to Kyle. Between applications going out and\nresponses coming in, Paul suffered a fresh bout of insomnia. What trouble would\nfollow rejection? More bounced cheques? Another DUI? Or something wotse,\nsomething he couldn't yet imagine?\nNo, Paul didn't believe in Kyle, he never had, and now he thinks he's nevet\nbelieved in anyone's abilities, not his stepchildren's, not his wife's, not his own.\nHe expects everyone to fail and cringes whenever anyone undertakes the mildest\nrisk. He tears up the letter and starts again. \"Dear Kyle, First, let me just say how\n50 PRISM 53:3 proud I am...\" This time when he reaches the second paragraph he forces himself\nto be honest. \"I should have believed in you,\" he writes, \"but I was afraid of being\ndisappointed, afraid to see you disappoint yourself. It was easier to think nothing\nwould come of your hard work than to put my hopes in something that might\nnot pan out. It's always been easiet to expect the wotst and be pleasantly surprised\nwhen the wotst doesn't happen.\"\nHe feels sick as he writes these things, disgusted with himself and ashamed.\nBut he can also sense the relief that comes with confession, the absolution to\nfollow, shame and disgust already beginning to disperse as soon as the wotds\nare down. He wonders if he would have been more pious had he been raised\nCatholic, with the promise of dispensation and release every week. Jewish\nuncertainty has never suited him. This time he doesn't refer at all to Kyle's past\ntransgressions, only to his own. He apologizes. He begs forgiveness. He imagines\nKyle reading the letter on the frayed couch of the filthy apartment he shares with\ntwo other boys, neither of whom has much future, as far as Paul can tell, one\nan Education major, the other doubling in Spanish and American Studies. He\npictures Kyle's face as he gets to the letter's second page, where Paul promises to\nthink only optimistic thoughts from now on, the skeptical lines of his stepson's\nmouth easing, eyes blinking and going red.\nAnd before he finishes Paul is wiping his own eyes. Pride has returned, now in\nequal measute for himself as for Kyle. It's a brave thing to have written this letter,\nhe knows it, and coming to the end he feels that he can now be brave in other\nthings, too, he can live with hope and anticipation as he's never allowed himself\nbefore. He signs off confidently, \"Love, Paul,\" and recaps the pen. His only regret\nis that he didn't use blue ink, which itself might have been a hopeful act, more\nopen and vulnerable. He considers calling Cynthia and showing her the letter\nbut then decides it's braver not to seek her approval, not to have her tell him how\nproud she is of his growth. The letter means more if it stays between him and\nKyle.\nHe reads it through, from beginning to end. There are a handful of spelling\nerrors he would like to correct, a few places where the wording could be more\nconcise or elegant. But overall he is satisfied. Moderately so. Except that now he\nwonders if it might not be brave aftet all to burden Kyle with his feelings, to ask\nfor understanding he may or may not deserve. Wouldn't the most courageous\nthing be to keep all this to himself and wrestle with his shortcomings on his own?\nIf so, then the letter, he begins to suspect, is just as selfish and cowardly as his past\nbehaviour. Only more insidious, because of its facade of humility. Yes, he is now\nsure of it. How could he have fooled himself into believing otherwise? He folds\nit in thirds, tucks it beneath a stack of papers at the back of his desk, and rips a\nsmaller sheet from a pocket notepad.\n\"Big congrats, pal,\" he scrawls with his blue pen. \"Well done. Knew you\ncould do it. Yours, P.\" Then he makes out a cheque for two hundred and fifty\ndollais. On the memo line he writes, \"For celebration or moving expenses.\" He\ntucks the note and cheque togethet in an envelope, addresses it, stamps it, and\ncloses his desk. Outside, a bteeze rustles the young oak leaves. He is teasonably\ncontent.\nprismmagazine.ca 51 1998\nOn eithet side of him, rapt attention. Maybe even rapture. The orchestra charges\ninto the allegro of the final movement, and he can feel the kids\u2014no longer\nchildren but always \"the kids\" in his mind\u2014bracing themselves, leaning forward\nin their seats, Kyle's elbows on his knees, Joy's hands pressed between crossed\nthighs.\nThey are listening to Mahler's Fifth Symphony, in the second tier of Avery\nFisher Hall, and even from this distance he can see sweat shining on the bald spot\nof the guest conductor, a short round Argentinean bristling with dark hair on\ncheeks, chin, and neck, everywhere but a clear circle on his crown. All evening his\nmovements have been jerky and frenetic, pained even, as if his joints are stiffening\nas the concert proceeds. Whenever the music grows softer, his grants are audible\nover the hum of oboe ot the whistle of flute, and between movements he appears\non the verge of collapse. Now, when he jabs his baton at the brass section, and\nthen lifts, lifts, lifts, Kyle makes a move as if to stand, and Joy claps a hand over\nher open mouth.\nThis night is everything Paul has hoped it might be, everything he has\nimagined, not just in the houts leading up, but for years prior. It's just luck that\nboth kids are visiting at the same time, luck that they have an evening free from\nseeing old friends on the same night Cynthia has a school function she can't skip,\nluck that he's been able to get tickets at the last minute. When, that morning, he\ncasually suggested the three of them go into the city, catch an early dinner and a\nconcert, they didn't deflect, didn't make excuses or roll eyes or exchange skeptical\nglances. \"Sounds lovely,\" Joy said, and Kyle agreed. \"Man, I miss New York,\" he\nsaid. \"Baltimore just doesn't cut it.\"\nIn their mid-twenties, they have become urban, sophisticated, cultured. They\ntravel regularly. They dress well, Kyle in slacks and wingtips, Joy in a sleeveless\nblack dress, too short, maybe, but otherwise elegant. On the drive in they talked\nabout other concerts they've seen in the last year\u2014a Cuban jazz trio in a Los\nAngeles club, the Czech National String Quartet playing Dvorak and Smetana\nin a Prague chapel. At dinner they ordered the most unusual items on the menu,\npappardelle in rabbit ragu, trout poached with sage and blueberries. They have\nseen interesting movies, have read interesting books. They tell stories about\ninteresting friends. They seem to enjoy Paul's company. And now they are moved\nby Mahler's heroic composition, by the conductor's maniacal energy, by the\norchestra's delicate skill and rousing spirit. What else can he ask for?\nAnd yet, sitting in seat 13, row CC, second tier of Avery Fisher Hall, he is\nterribly bored. Bored! He has never been so bored in his life. The exhilaration of\nthe music bores him. The precision of all those violins moving in synch bores him.\nEven the conductot's hysterics, the wild flinging of his baton, the sweat matting\nhair around his bald spot, all of it strikes Paul as flaccid and predictable, not an\noriginal gesture in his entire repertoire, every moment studied and rehearsed,\ncalculated to bring Paul's stepson to his feet, to make his stepdaughter covet her\nmouth with a lovely slender hand. You're so boring! he wants to shout at the\nconductor when he slices the baton through the air for the finale, at the musicians\nwhen they hit the last note and freeze, at the audience members when they jump\n52 PRISM 53:3 to theit feet and cheer. Boring, boring, boring!\nHe even wants to say it to his stepchildren, these beautiful young people just\nembarking on adult life, armed already with sophisticated tastes and admirable\nhabits for which he has never allowed himself to take credit but now gives himself\nall the blame. What sort of people might they be if he hadn't interfered? Don't\ndo it, he wants to tell them. Don't wear slacks and elegant dresses and listen to\nboring old Mahler. Don't read interesting books and talk about them with your\ninteresting friends. Stop now while you have the chance. Do something wild and\nreckless and unexpected. Track wildebeest migration in the Serengeti. Prospect\nfor precious metals atop secluded Alaskan mountains. Knock over liquor stores\nto support a gambling addiction. Anything. Just, for God's sake, don't be like me.\nBecause yes, of course, his real boredom is with himself. He has felt it\nnagging, with increasing urgency, all evening. In the car, when he struggled to\nfind something meaningful to add to the kids' lively conversation and then,\nfailing, fell silent. In the restaurant, where he ordered the same scallops with\nasparagus he'd ordered a month earlier, before going to the ballet with Cynthia.\nAnd now, edging down the aisle, creeping along with the buzzing crowd, nodding\nin agreement that this was the best performance of Mahler's Fifth he has ever\nheard. He wishes he could say something shocking and original. He wishes he\ncould provide the kids stories to tell their friends. Their real fathet, at least, has\nbeen inconsistent enough to keep them wondering about him all these yeats.\nWhat thought have they evet given Paul when he's stepped out of sight?\nJoy takes his arm when they reach the staits and holds onto him as they\ndescend to the lobby. \"That was delightful,\" she says, and he has the feeling that\nshe has been thinking the phrase over for some time, maybe planning to say it\nsince before the concett started. Even het smile seems practiced. \"We should do\nthis evety time I'm home.\"\nKyle adds, as they push through glass doors into the courtyard, the fountain\nlit up and burbling high over their heads, \"I'll never hear that fourth movement\nthe same way again. The CD doesn't do it justice.\"\nThe night is warm and clear, a few stars visible despite the city's glare, and it\nseems to Paul that he is glimpsing the depths between them, far into that dark\nempty place. On and on it goes. One dull life leading to another. What crimes he\nhas committed.\nWhen they reach the patking garage, however, the kids hesitate. Joy takes her\nhand from his arm. Kyle, he notices, has unbuttoned the second button on his\nshirt and rolled his sleeves. Their expressions are no longer placid and satisfied\nbut oddly expectant, maybe uneasy. \"Thanks for this, Paul,\" Kyle says. \"It's been\ngreat, really. But\u2014\"\n\"We're heading downtown,\" Joy says, and takes a step backward. Something\nin her voice has changed. There's impatience in it, defensiveness, and he guesses\nthat this is the first honest thing she's said to him all day. \"Some friends ate\nmeeting us.\"\n\"But the car,\" he says, and gestures at the garage. Wearing the short black\ndress, he realizes now, had nothing to do with the symphony, or with him. All\nevening her thoughts have been elsewhere. He knows nothing of their lives, not\nprismmagazine.ca 53 really, except that they are nothing like his own. \"I mean, I drove you\u2014\"\n\"We'll take the train home,\" she says. \"Don't worry about us.\"\n\"Downtown?\" he asks. He knows he shouldn't hope for them to invite him\nalong. If they did, he couldn't promise to be as interesting as the most tedious of\ntheir friends, though he might order a drink he's never had before. He shouldn't,\nbut he can't help it. He has never wanted anything more.\nBut already their backs are turned. They are walking away from him. As soon\nas they reach Broadway, they'll slip into the crowd and disappear, claimed by the\ncity he has taught them to love, by the interesting lives he has wished upon them.\n\"Enjoy yourselves,\" he calls aftet them. \"I'll leave the back door unlocked.\"\nKyle gives a thumbs-up without glancing around. Joy peeks at her watch. Paul\nhands the patking attendant his claim ticket and, picturing all the roads that lead\naway from here, tties to plot a new route home.\n54 PRISM 53:3 A ngela Bebrec\nFORGET THE MOUSETRAP, BUILD THE\nBETTER BOMB\nGlass shards scattered as seeds across the tile\nand all everyone writes about is flowers.\nYou slammed me against the wall,\nrammed your fingers into my body as though\nlooking for something misplaced\nlike a petition to ban nukes or\na Save the Whales placard\nor the entire collection of nude\nGeorgia O'Keeffe photogtaphs.\nYou fixated on the centre.\nAs seine nets drown white-sided dolphins\nthe wall held my wrists,\nwater smothered everything,\na vase from my thrashing jumped\nfrom the bookshelf, the glass splinters\nglistened as an Edward Teller bomb\nin late evening, a ravenous slap,\nshattered every pavement ever paved\nin search of the biggest bomb,\nthe best bomb idea, so huge\nyou wouldn't need to send it out\nyou could just set it off in your back yard\nbeside the lilies and petunias,\na bomb so colossal it would kill everyone.\nAfter, I showered with lavendet-scented soap,\nsubtle brushstrokes set in oil and acrylic.\nI open a can of Ocean Wise tuna,\ntread watercolour waves.\nThe great irony of Hiroshima was a month after\na typhoon came and washed all the radiation away.\nYour hands advance in my mind\nlike seeds scattered to the wind,\na dandelion clock before a breath.\nprismmagazine.ca 55 Evelyn Lau\nLOCUS\nThe weekend he takes her to the island,\nit pours. Rain hisses through the tree canopy,\ndrips onto cracked sidewalks.\nThe cement factory, the ocean.\nYou think of his mouth on her in some bed-\nand-breakfast, and the blood vessels in your brain\nshrink and dilate, contract and expand\u2014\nthere's no relief, the antidepressants block\nthe opiate rush of codeine, that blast of sweetness.\nThat secret treat like a gumdrop\ntucked in your cheek.\nAt the marina you noticed his eyes\non your scars, wondered what he was taking in,\nrejecting. Cold wine in enormous glasses,\nthe shine of hulls and chrome, the conversation\nturning to places you would never see together\u2014\nKey West and the Oregon coast,\nthe adobe houses of New Mexico.\nShe was thin and dark, with a tight smile\nand sunken eyes, and he followed her\nthrough the crowded room. You wore a red dress\nand waved at him, but like the fat girl\nwho takes up too much space\nand becomes invisible, he didn't see you.\nWhen you hold your hand\nto the stove, the skin crisps up\nwith the fine translucence of silk,\nforms a delicate, drifting balloon.\nA fiery locus of pain you welcome,\nobliterating finally that other. Beating, beating\nall weekend like a second heart.\n56 PRISM 53:3 Derek Sheffield\nMADE IN AMERICA\nA little destruction never hurt\nanyone coming in from the cold,\nholding out his hands flat\nto the popping flames as if to say \"peace\"\nor \"whoa.\" Whiffs of wood smoke\nsmell like deep time, taste rich\nas grilled salmon. Anyone can lie\nlike a dog stretching his belly\nto brassy heat as all thought\nbecomes skin and everything\nbehind the glass and iron door\nfractures. So warm\nit's hard to see\nthrough the sizzling.\nprismmagazine.ca\n57 A GLASS FOR YOU\nYou were eating and laughing\nin a restaurant, a table full of people.\nThey were all smiling, working\nknives and forks through their food,\nlooking up: something you said.\nYou were booked to fly\nthe next morning. (When did you\nlearn Russian?) I was in a pub,\nwaving through the glass before me\nand the glass across the street\nbehind which you were telling a joke,\nI think. I took your picture,\nhoping the flash would make you look.\nThe pint I raised to my mouth brimmed\nwith foam as I drank, trying to see\nout of the corner of my eye whether\nyou saw, but it didn't matter. The toast\nwas in time and would do its work\nwhether you knew it or not and be with you\nin that far land through every window.\n58 PRISM 53:3 Greg Bhyno\nPLUS ONE\nV\/n the way over to the church, Jackie started in with the cab driver. Every\ncouple minutes or so, Todd would look in the rearview mirror to gauge if the old\nman was losing his patience.\n\"So tell me about the real way to have a sauna,\" Jackie insisted. \"What's the\ndeal with the birch twigs?\"\n\" Vasta f he clarified.\n\"Yeah. ' Vasta.' People whapping themselves. Is that a spiritual thing?\" Once\nshe'd detected a Finnish accent, Todd's new girlfriend was all over the poor guy\nwith questions.\n\"Nah, nah.\" The driver made a quick left turn and g-forced Todd into a forty-\nfive degree angle. Jackie hugged the passenger headrest. \"It just feels good. You\nknow? Good for your skin.\"\n\"So, what? It's like a sex thing?\"\n\"Nah, nah.\" In the rearview, the driver smiled. Todd noticed he was missing\none of his front teeth.\nAs they stepped into the mahogany yawn of the church vestibule, an usher bent\nhis elbow in offering to Jackie. Todd followed the two of them down the aisle and\nfelt temporarily cuckolded. The usher was some zit-faced younger cousin of the\nbride that Todd had met years ago, before puberty did its thing. Eventually, he\nslowed and pointed out the available seating. His pimples rearranged themselves\nas he smiled at Jackie and shook Todd's hand. Above the tux and below the gelled\nhair, the kid's face looked like the one thing he forgot to put in order.\nSt. Pat's was filling up and Todd started recognizing people. He'd already\nintroduced Jackie to Emma's mom on the way inside. He didn't call her his\ngirlfriend, he just said, \"This is Jackie,\" as if she would've already heard about\nJackie. The famous Jackie.\nOnce they were seated, Todd saw Nicole Kernaghan with the rest of the\nbridesmaids conspiring in taffeta near the pulpit. She mouthed \"Oh my God!\"\nand waved crazily towatd Todd. Todd waved back.\n\"What's with all the Britneys?\" Jackie asked.\nJackie was twenty-six but still used the taxonomy she'd developed in high\nschool. To be fair, Emma and her friends did fit the criteria. When Todd had\ndated Emma, all of his friends, even his parents, had seemed pretty impressed.\nEmma was one of those lean, blond goddesses with petfect teeth that everyone\ngenerally expected to be a bitch.\n\"God, I hate all this formality,\" Jackie said, looking around. \"Get on with it\nalready.\"\nprismmagazine.ca 59 When Emma's white spectre finally appeared at the end of the long aisle, Todd\nwaited to feel something. Maybe a realization that Emma had been the one\nall along. First cut is the deepest and all that. Maybe he'd sutprise himself and\neveryone else by standing up when the minister asked for people to Object or\nForever Hold Their Peace. But the minister never asked, and the realization never\ncame, and when all the ring swapping went down, he was pretty okay with it.\nTodd had met Emma's fiance a couple times, and he seemed nice enough, even if\nhe had the lyrics from a Dave Matthews song tattooed around his forearm.\nThe reception was at the Island Lake Conservation Centre, this \"back-to-\nnature\" private hall that developers were apparently able to build on Crown land\nbecause they used the word \"conservation\" in the title. After ten years of weddings\nand leadership retreats, there were probably more beer cans sunk in its waterfront\nthan in its recycling bins. From the front, the building didn't look like much\u2014\nmostly roof and a few low windows\u2014but when Todd and Jackie followed a series\nof turquoise balloons around to the back, it grew more impressive. Built into a\nsprawling hill, the backside of the place looked like a two-storey battleship run\naground. A row of picture windows and sliding glass doors were underlined by\na hovering green-wood patio on which Emma's friends and family stood around\ndrinking out of wine glasses and beer bottles.\nJackie and Todd stood halfway up the lawn that funnelled down to a stop at\nthe water's edge. There was a small clearing there, where a curtain of evergreens\nparted to let everyone catch a glimpse of the lake. Some of the men had taken off\ntheir coats and hung them on the crooks of theit elbows. Most of the women had\nshucked off their heels to walk barefoot in the grass. Todd noticed a pod of three\nguests\u2014two men and one woman\u2014smoking cigarettes close to the water.\nAs a rule, Todd agreed to wear a suit only when occasion absolutely required\nit. Even then, he just wore The Undettaket, a shapeless black thing he had bought\nfor a funeral during his last year of high school. It was a statement. If pressed,\nTodd might have made some dim argument that contained the word Marxism.\nBut the two men near the lake were sharp knives that carved up his flimsy\nideology. Their tailored, linen suits silently asked Todd the following question:\nWhy the fuck would you wear black wool to a June wedding?\nThe woman with the two men wore a low-cut summer dress. Just below het\ncollarbone, a double tattoo of opposing birds swooped toward her cleavage. As\nTodd watched her, she squatted and screeched loudly at something one of the\nmen had said. She held up her glass for one of them to take, and when he did, she\nfell on the grass and turned to one side. Her laughter was audible across the lawn.\nEverywhere there was the slightest turning of heads.\n\"I think I'm going to go see if I can bum a smoke off one of those guys,\"\nJackie said.\n\"So, I guess this means you're not quitting,\" Todd answered.\n\"I quit quitting. Quitting sucks.\"\nTodd squinted up at the patio. \"We should probably go in, find our seats, say\n'hi' to a few people first.\"\n\"What do you mean 'we'?\" Jackie smiled and walked off toward the water.\n60 PRISM 53:3 Todd made his way up the hill. He recognized a few people right away, but\nnone of them seemed to notice him. Nicole Kernaghan's arms were a flurry of\nnarrative. Mike Coley, who had called Todd a week before to see if he was actually\ncoming to this thing, was talking to Shane Turrie, who was a huge dick. Everyone\nhad already knit themselves into small, familiar circles, which Todd was too sober\nto penetrate. He'd been hoping he'd run into Emma before the speeches started,\nbut he knew the deal. Brides were rock stars.\nThe glass patio door shushed at him as he tugged it open. He went inside\nto the relatively empty reception hall and threaded his way through an endless\nnumber of white circular tables draped in long tablecloths. They looked like fat\nghosts, decapitated at the waist. On the opposite side of the room, the DJ adjusted\nhis equipment. His hait was tied back in a ponytail and he wore a bolo tie.\n\"Bar's the other way,\" he said. Without looking up, he pointed to a hallway\nbehind him.\n\"Thanks,\" Todd replied. \"Just looking for the bathroom.\"\n\"Also the other way,\" the DJ said, still pointing, now eyeballing a binder full\nof CDs.\nBack outside, Todd eventually found Jackie halfway through someone else's\ncigarette.\n\"This is Al, and Vincent, and...\" she squinted for a moment at the girl with\nthe bird tats, \"Liz!\"\nHer new friends golf-clapped like Jackie had successfully performed an\nexcellent trick. There was already a drink in her hand, even though Todd had\nmanaged two rye and Cokes through the crowd and down the lawn. Everyone\nlooked at Todd like it was his turn to speak.\n\"Are you...\" Todd sttuggled. \"How do you know... everyone?\"\n\"Liz and Vincent are cousins with the groom,\" Jackie explained. \"They all\nflew in from Edmonton.\"\n\"Family,\" Liz said. \"You've got to do these things once in a while.\"\nTodd nodded.\n\"And how do you know 'everyone'?\" Liz asked, reusing Todd's word. Out of\nher mouth it sounded polished, elegant.\n\"This one used to bang the bride,\" Jackie answered for him. \"In high school.\"\n\"Oh!\" Liz said, pleasantly scandalized, then repeated, \"Oh,\" with darker\nunderstanding. \"But you're not...\"\n\"No,\" Todd said. \"I was the guy after that.\"\n\"The Rebound,\" Jackie added.\nThere was a stumble in the rhythm of the conversation. Jackie took it upon\nherself to drain the rest of her glass and throw it on the lawn. It bounced on the\nspongy ground and rolled down toward the lake. \"Here,\" she motioned to Todd\nand relieved him of the rye and Coke he'd brought for her. They all watched her\ndrain that one, too. When she thtew the second glass on the ground, it rolled and\nclinked gently against the fiist like a well-played croquet ball.\n\"I love her!\" Liz said to Al and Vincent. They nodded and smiled. Todd\nsmiled too, feeling his status elevate. He had loved her first.\nprismmagazine.ca 61 \"You know what?\" Liz said. \"When it gets dark we should all go swimming.\"\n\"Obviously!\" Jackie agreed.\n\"I didn't bring a bathing suit,\" Todd said.\nJackie rolled her eyes.\nWhen they finally went inside and sat down to eat, Todd could guess what Jackie\nwas thinking. For all his talk about what good friends he and Emma still were,\nshe'd put him at the photogtapher's table\u2014the freak table\u2014farthest from the\nwedding party and populated by all the other loose ends that didn't quite fit\ninto her life anymore. They included Emma's favourite high school teacher\u2014a\nthin widow whose canary pantsuit was covered in grey cat hair\u2014and a tall,\nsquinty man Todd recognized as Emma's mom's ex-boyfriend, Stan. Stan had\nbeen in the picture around the same time as Todd, and he used to do this whole\noverprotective dad shtick\u2014have her home by eleven o'clock or else! Now he could\nonly acknowledge Todd as a fellow dumpee, a comrade in defeat.\nLiz and the two men were seated closer to the front. Their table was the\nloudest, and was shushed twice by a gang of serious-looking relatives. Eventually,\nafter the long speeches subdued the party into what seemed like a terminal coma,\nTodd asked Jackie if she wanted to call it a night.\n\"Fuck that,\" she said. \"The bar just opened back up.\"\nTodd stood outside on the patio with Jackie and her new friends, nursing a drink,\nfeeling the bass notes in his ribcage, and watching everyone else smoke. The\nwindows of the Conservation Centre were sweating, but through the fog he could\nsee a circle of dancers, its perimeter occasionally pulsing toward its middle, like\nthe body of an enormous jellyfish.\n\"It's like, you have these old friends you've known forever,\" L,iz was saying\nover the music, \"and technically, you're still friends, but it's not like they're the\npeople you'd choose now. You're just kind of stuck with them.\"\n\"Ugh. I know what you mean,\" Jackie said.\nTodd ttied to make sense of the figures in the window. Somewhere in the\nmiddle of that jellyfish was Emma. He could picture her, drink in one hand, train\nof her dress in the other. He hadn't spoken to her all day.\n\"I should go back in for a bit,\" Todd said, mostly to Jackie. \"You know.\nMingle.\"\nVincent and Al stared at him. Vincent's sunglasses were perched on his head\nlike the sun might come back up.\n\"Good idea,\" Jackie said. \"Why deny the world your conversational gifts?\"\nInside, things were getting thick. Todd waded into the humidity and looked for\nEmma. Aunts and uncles acted out their bulky anachronisms on the dance floor,\nwhile bridesmaids flashed theit teeth in a screamy tutquoise mob. The zit-faced\nusher convulsed into a series of uprocks. The machinery of his arms tangled and\nuntangled as a couple other guys his age herded the crowd into a circle. The kid\nmoonwalked into position and threw himself into a 6-step. Once he got winded,\nthe groom stepped in and bought some easy glory with a running man. The old\n62 PRISM 53:3 folks seemed impressed. When Shane Turrie tried to do the worm and lurched\nacross the floor on his stomach, Todd broke free of the spectators. The whole\nsoup of it was starting to get to him. He headed to the washroom, and when\nthe door swung shut behind him, he felt swallowed up by the cool, porcelain\nwhiteness. After he pissed holes through the urinal ice cubes, he washed his hands\nand yanked out a foot of industrial paper towel. He crumpled it up, ran it under\nthe tap, and pushed the soggy mass into his face.\nHe left the bathroom and bee-lined for the bar to order another rye and\nCoke. While the bartender fired a brown spear of fountain pop into his glass, the\nsmell of stale cigarettes and body odour announced Shane Turrie. Todd hunkered\ndown, hoping he'd pass by, but when the battender handed Todd his drink, Turrie\nleaned in and tapped a Coors Light against it.\n\"So? What's up, bud? Long time no see.\"\nHis fat jaw was crosshatched with new beard, and his hair was stringy with\ndance floor sweat.\n\"Hey, Shane,\" Todd said. \"Nice moves out there.\"\n\"Yeah,\" Turrie said, turning around and looking out across the hall. \"Love\nthat old school shit.\"\nTurrie took a swig of his beer. \"So are you here with\u2014?\" His fingers frilled\nimaginary tattoos at his lapels.\nTodd shook his head. \"That's the groom's cousin, Liz. She's from Edmonton.\"\n\"Man. I wonder what kind of ink she's got under that dress, right?\"\nTodd shrugged.\n\"So this must be kind of weird for you, huh? You and Emma, right? Jesus.\nHow'd that ever happen?\"\nTodd shrugged again and stated at a couple kids he didn't recognize as they\nweaved in and out of the crowd. He remembered the party at Nicole Kernaghan's\nhouse. It was the end of August and things were cooling down. At some point\nhe'd realized that he and Emma were the only ones left in Nicole's parents' pool.\nEveryone else had gone inside, and Todd could see all the muted colours of the\nparty through a dripping layer of condensation. He didn't know Emma very well,\nand it was clear she barely remembered him from Geography class, but it didn't\nmatter. She was drunk and talking about avoiding some guy. Todd was in beta\nheaven spending time with a half-naked alpha (and God, those nipples, cutting\nthrough her suit like tiny diamonds). She kept grabbing his wrist and pulling\nhim underwatet with her. She'd shout things to him down there that he didn't\nunderstand.\n\"Guess what I'm saying,\" she said, and then down they went.\n\"Cow's meat?\" he sputtered when they broke the surface.\n\"Come on!\" she said. \"Dolphins can do it.\"\n\"Colostomy?\"\nThe third time they went under, she gave up on talking and just kissed him\ninstead.\nOf coutse, Todd wasn't about to share all that with a guy whose greatest\naccomplishment was night-shitting on the lawn outside the school cafeteria. (It\nwas a serious coil, he'd btagged. They had to know it was human shit.)\nprismmagazine.ca 63 Just in time, Mike Coley materialized.\n\"Bad news, Shane,\" Mike said. \"I think you missed your chance with that\nchick.\"\n\"What chick?\"\n\"You know. The Tattooed Lady.\"\n\"Oh yeah?\" Turrie said. \"How's that?\"\n\"Emma's mom just caught her and some other freaks skinny-dipping in the\nlake.\"\n\"What? And no one invited me?\"\nShane and Mike laughed. Todd finished his drink and put the glass down on\nthe bar.\nJackie's dress clung to the places where her skin was still wet. She and Todd fell\nin step as they ttudged up the incline of the Conservation Centre's lawn. Jackie\npushed on her knees as she walked.\n\"I'm not saying I wasn't out of line, but Jesus, did she have to be such a bitch\nabout it?\"\nTodd said nothing. It was dark. In the neat distance, he could make out two\nfigures next to a lamp post that marked the statt of the parking lot. Farthet back,\nlight glinted off the windshields of fotty or so cars. As Todd approached, Nicole\nKernaghan took a swig of wine then passed the bottle to the bride.\n\"Aww!\" Emma made the extended vowel sound she used to express\ndisappointment or address adorable animals. \"Are you leaving already?\"\nTodd looked at Jackie and said, \"Yeah. Yeah, we better get going.\"\n\"But I barely even saw you!\" Emma pulled at the train of het dress and it\nfollowed obediently. She reached over to give Todd a hug. He felt the wine bottle\nswing around and tap the small of his back. \"Or you,\" she said to Jackie, then\nwent in to hug her.\n\"Oh!\" Emma laughed as they came together. \"You're all wet!\"\nWhen they broke apart, Jackie gripped Emma's elbow for a moment. \"I love\nyour hair by the way,\" Jackie said. \"It's really pretty. I wanted to do something like\nthat, but mine isn't long enough.\"\n\"Oh, God,\" Emma said. \"Mine's not that long eithet. The girl at the place\nmust've used an entire can of hairspray to get it to stay like this. Feel it. It's like\ncement.\"\nJackie prodded experimentally. Todd smiled at Nicole and tried to think of\nthings to say.\n\"Could I get a slug of that?\" Jackie motioned to the wine bottle.\n\"Why don't you just take it? We've got, like, thirty of these left. My uncle\ndonated a couple cases. You'd be doing me a favour. Honest.\"\nWhen the cab arrived, Jackie and Todd waved to the bride and bridesmaid.\nTodd collapsed onto the seat and was surprised to see the same gap-toothed Finn\nsmiling at him in the rearview mirror.\n\"Hello my friend,\" the driver said. \"Did everyone have a good time?\"\n64 PRISM 53:3 On the way back to town, Jackie sat up front with the driver.\n\"Hevonpaska,\" he was saying. \"That means 'horse shit'.\"\n\"Hevonpaska.\" Jackie ttied it out.\n\"And 'paska nommd means 'shit face'!\"\nJackie laughed and held out the wine bottle. The driver wrapped his hand\naround its neck.\n\"KippisT he said and took a pull.\nFrom the back, Todd could hear the sound of wine splashing inside glass. He\nleaned his head against the cool window and let himself be hypnotized by street\nlights that seemed to approach cautiously, then hurry past.\nprismmagazine.ca 65 Daniela Elza\nAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GRIEF 1\nthe copper snowflakes.\nthe broken boat in which\nwe sleep with our backs to each other.\nself portrait with bird. replicated,\nover and over\u2014 a vow\ncast in the heaviest steel\nat the centre of our room.\nthere is no parting\u2014\nin the latest unfinished sentence\nthe image floats homeless\nuntil someone walks away.\nchurch bells briefly disperse the noise\nof the city\u2014\na city hammered out of copper\nand clay, each morning\nsnapped tight on the forehead.\nfeet nailed to a floor they know too well.\neach day\nan altar in the corner burns\nhope\nas if it were lamp oil.\n66 PRISM 53:3 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GRIEF 2\nour silences are geometric confessions now\u2014\nacquire more sharp angles each time.\nmetaphots are innocuous until we use\nthe wrong one.\nthere are no hinges to count on\nno formulas to apply safely.\nI am looking\nfor the man I saw the first time I met you.\nand the narrative circles. see\nmy story leaning away from yours.\nat the end no one knows\nwhat happened.\nas if this is some kind of inoculation against\ngrief. these snapshots\nwe take in the dark.\nin the morning we develop\nnegatives.\nsee dark\nwhere light used to be.\nprismmagazine.ca 67 WHAT REMAINS\nas a child I went on class trips to the mausoleum,\nwe lined up for hours waited to get in.\npaid respect to an empty shell\nonce deemed a hero.\nat that tender age of course I had reverence\nfor heroes. but once inside I was more\ncurious what the dead looked like\u2014\nwhen my grandmother lay there in the chapel\neveryone kissed her\ngoodbye.\nwhen my turn came I was not sure how to kiss\nwhat had died. I do not remember what I did\nonly the feeling of candle. her fingers\npale wax\nher face honeycomb\nmoulded in her likeness.\nI think of her fingers when I light candles\u2014\nwhat remains from the mausoleum body is\nhis serenity and how cold how very cold it was\ninside. how the blanket was sunken\nhow he was not all there\u2014\nand now I think of us.\nwhat froze in time\u2014\nhow we barely noticed.\nstill the warm light on the face I used to know\nstirs up my blood in reverence for what is past.\nand the silence here no one dares to break\u2014\njust the shuffle of feet\nin and out\nback and forth.\n68 PRISM 53:3 Margo Wheaton\nNORTH STREET\nThis time of year the days end\nsudden as someone slamming\na cellar door.\nIn the late afternoon, cars go by\nflashlighting leaves that step\nfrom the closets of shadows, slick\nand outspoken as new vinyl shoes.\nLike a soon-to-be-discovered\nstar transfixing a crowded tavern before\nthe end of the second song,\nin October the trees don't have\nto raise their voices to get\nyour attention.\nOne's calling you now\nfrom the parking lot beside\nthe school, branches creaking,\nsequined with rain and though\nyou've seen red maples\nin autumn,\nlike a heart\nits breaking is the first\nin the world.\nprismmagazine.ca 69 Richard Kelly Kemick\nTHOUGHT I'D GET MORE\nJL found the bishop in the river mud a couple mornings ago, buried up to his\nneck. His white hat poked out of the sludge. I slid his body free and held him\nin my hands before throwing him back into the water, then watched him bob\naway with the current.\nThere are a couple things that need to be understood before I can tell this story.\nThe first is that my dad is gone. Forever. No note, no \"Dear Jeremy and Debora,\nI'll love you always.\" No coming back.\nThe second is that I am not angry. People keep asking me if I am and I keep\ntelling them no but they ask in a way like they have already decided for me.\nThe third, and this is perhaps the most important, is that the chess set was\nan accident. I took it to the Bull Horn bridge three weeks ago, five years to the\nday since my dad had been gone. The railing is a wide wooden plank and I had\nthought there was enough room. I'd set up all the pieces and I was watching\nhow the moonlight bent around their bodies, forming shadows across the empty\nbattlefield. But then the wind caught the board's corner and the whole set\ntumbled into the river.\nLast week, I took a job at John Sherbrook's pawn shop. Long John's Pawn. John\nflew to Miami for foot surgery and is staying there for ten days. Usually, he\nwould have just closed the shop but I think my mother talked to him and told\nhim that I was not doing great and, since he used to be friends with my dad,\nasked if he could help her out. I bet my mother told him that I needed direction,\nbecause that is what she always tells me, and I always point my finget far out in\nfront and say \"North.\" I never know if I am right but I do know that she has no\nclue either.\nAt first, John had said that I couldn't purchase anything, only sell, but then I\nsaid that I wasn't interested in that case, so he allowed me to do some buying. The\nthings people pawn range from immeasurably valuable to absolutely worthless.\nThey will either bring in the necklace their great-grandmother smuggled through\nAuschwitz or something they bought at a jewellery store that does two-fof-one\npiercings.\nWhatever they bring, their response is always the same. \"I thought I'd get\nmore.\" The worst is the old men trying to sell their taxidermy. \"But there's only\nfive of these birds still alive.\"\n\"Well,\" I'll say, \"bring me in another five and then we'll talk.\"\nWe will go back and forth for a bit but I never budge. It doesn't matter\u2014once\nthey are here, they have already sold it. They will leave with the couple dollars of\nchange in their pockets and I will watch them exit, smug behind my long glass\ndesk\u2014the kind that has jewels and watches swaddled in velvet within\u2014like an\n70 PRISM 53:3 octopus guarding my treasure.\nMy dad bought the chess set in England. He and a friend of his had gone while\nme and my mother visited her parents in London, Ontario. He was supposed\nto come with us but a few days before we booked the flight he said that it was\ncheaper for him to fly to the real London. He said it as a joke, like he was\nbemoaning the price of travel, but when the day came, he veered towards the\ninternational terminals where his friend was already waiting for him while me\nand my mother went to domestic. Not a word said between us.\nWe stayed in Ontario for a week. He stayed in England for two. When he\ngot back, he placed the wtapped box on the kitchen table on top of my open\ntextbook. I started peeling off the tape but he said I didn't need to save the paper\nand helped me open it. He was already explaining the rules before I knew what\nit was. \"It's the perfect game,\" he said. \"Everything in balance.\"\nI held a piece in my hand, rubbing its hardwood curves. It was heavier than\nI thought it would be. \"That's the bishop,\" my dad said. \"A common mistake is\novervaluing it.\" He told me that it can hit from a long ways away but has to stay\non the same coloured squares it starts on. \"Really,\" he said, \"it's just a bit better\nthan a pawn. But at least everyone knows a pawn is worthless.\"\nHe helped me set the pieces up along the board. I asked him to tell me the\nrules again but he did so in a mixed-up way, repeating and backttacking. We\nstarted to play and I just moved a couple pieces around until he told me he had\nwon. I still don't undetstand the game.\nI cleaned up the board, thanked him again, and got up to help my mother\nwith dinner. As I stood to slide the chair back, he asked, \"So what did you get\nme?\"\nMy dad was the only adult I knew who still cared about presents. But that\nwas usually just for birthdays and Christmas, I didn't know he was expecting one\nfrom a family reunion.\nI went back to my room and brought out a hat my grandmother had knitted\nfor me. I told him it was from a small shop in downtown Toronto. He put it\non and without even looking in the mirror, said he loved it. Sometimes when\nI am really missing him, I think of him in that hat\u2014how it was too small and\nsqueezed his head, how it matted his hair over his eyes, how he told me he\ncouldn't wait for winter. I think about him and that stupid smile and it kind of\ndulls the ache, makes it farther away.\nOn weekdays, I open up the shop as soon as I get out of school. On weekends,\nI have nothing to do so I can drift around the store all day, spending most of\nmy time alone\u2014my mausoleum of stereo equipment and computer monitors.\nLast Saturday, just before I closed for lunch, I heard the sleigh bells above the\ndoor jingle. In walked Tim Hilt, his face buried in the town's newsletter. \"John,\nyou'll never believe...\" He looked up at me and we both just stood there staring\nat each other.\nTim used to drop by the house when my dad was still around, but since then\nwe actively avoid each other\u2014at least I avoid him. He is a Shriner and hosts the\nprismmagazine.ca 71 town's annual Parade of Garage Sales. The Parade is one of the most popular\nthings we have here. Every household sets up a couple tables in their driveway\nand people love it because they can see each other's intimate artifacts\u2014the failed\nChristmas gifts, the paint-by-numbers landscapes, the two-piece bathing suits\nthat still have the price-tag attached. People tour the whole town, scouring\nover the baby toys, paperbacks, and hardly-used ellipticals, piecing together the\nhidden lives of their neighbours.\nThese are the relics of our town's unspoken museum. Most of it is worthless\nbut some of it is made valuable by its story. Last year, Barbara Morris bought the\nextension cord that Helmet Deller used to beat his wife with before he found\nthe Church of Latter-day Saints. Barb got into a bidding war with her sister and\nwound up paying fifteen dollars over what the hardware store would charge for\nthat same cord new. A few months later, I helped her install a bathroom sink and\nsaw the cord coiled on her coffee table, plugging in a lamp that was already close\nto the socket.\nThat same summer, Lewis Merwin settled with Brandi Turlington on thirty-\neight dollars for her bath towels\u2014the ones her daughter had worn under her\nshirt for three and a half months, adding a new layer every couple weeks, until\none day when she was grocery shopping they all came tumbling out and she\nhad to admit to the miscarriage. Edith Taylor-Billanky paid seventy-five for the\nglass tumblers of Martha Babcock. Ron Trest paid sixteen for the steak knives of\nDonna Sternberg. Danny Turnbolt's gtandfather sold a framed picture of Danny\nand his half-brother for just under thirty. Danny's grandfather would have said it\nwas the frame he was selling and the picture just happened to be in there, but we\nall know the truth. Jennifer Andrews has already announced that next year she is\nselling her garden hose, the one that snaked from Thorn Purcell's exhaust pipe in\nthrough his window. She isn't even the hose's original owner\u2014she bought it off\nThorn's wife a couple years ago\u2014but now she needs the money for her scratch-\nand-wins.\nThe Parade is the only thing me and my mother still do together. She will\nget dressed up, put on a bright shade of lipstick, and hold my arm as we walk\nfrom driveway to driveway, never cutting across the fertilized lawns. The sellers'\nfaces are always stoic and disinterested behind their tables, their lives spread out\nin front of them. And in their faces, there is something of what Helmet maybe\nfound with the Mormons: a comfortable confidence, a stubbornness of belief.\nMy mother has always liked to leave her fingerprints on anything she found. She\nwould pick up the toddler shoes of Michelle Neilson or the belt buckle of Scott\nChristie and try and quibble the price down. I know it is only a couple years\nbefore she starts selling my dad's stuff\nAnd when you think about it, between the garage sales and the pawn shop,\nnothing here is new anymore. Someone will buy something one year, sell it the\nnext, and then buy it again the following. This endless recycling of what we used\nto own, this pointless return to things we already had.\nThe reason Tim Hilt came in was because he had fotms he needed John to\nsign. Something about donating money fot the fleet of lawn signs that he puts\nalong the highway. I told him that John would be back in a week and I would\n72 PRISM 53:3 leave the papers on his desk.\nWhen I came back from John's office, Tim was still in the shop, looking at\nthe electric guitats. \"So you're covering while John's in Tampa?\" he said with his\nback to me, plucking one of the mute strings.\n\"Miami,\" I corrected.\nHe turned to face me. \"And you're able to buy on his behalf?\"\n\"I guess,\" I said. \"Whatever I feel is worth something.\"\nTim said that he would stop by the next day with some things he had been\nwanting to get rid of. I told him that if it was a bunch of stuff it might work\nbetter to wait for John but he said tomorrow was best for his schedule. He\ndoesn't pronounce the wotd \"skedule\" like everyone else but \"shedule.\" And that\npronunciation is pretty much all anyone needs to know about Tim.\nI am always looking for symmetry in life, an end that loops back to the start.\nSometimes it is hard to know when a thing is really finished and not just waiting.\nBecause it is that waiting that makes everything impossible. My mothet has\ntaken it the hardest, cannot stop thinking that it is something she did.\nThe closest I remember to my parents fighting was one Fathet's Day when\nmy mother got my dad a novel he had already read. He grumbled and pouted\nand wouldn't talk to her but then the next day she came back with a different\nbook and it was like nothing had ever happened.\nAs a kid, all I ever wanted was for something to happen to me. Anything\nat all. Anything that would make my life special and worth something. Then,\nwhen I was eight, I was riding my bike down a hill and the bolt came out of the\nfront wheel and I went over the handlebars. I don't remember actually hitting\nthe ground, just lurching towards it. When I came to, I could taste blood in\nmy mouth and could feel its warm trickle down my chin. I saw the leaves in\nthe tree above me, its wide and warm canopy, turn into sparrows and fly away.\nThere were these bright spokes of sunlight that shimmered onto the pavement\nand I reached out to touch them. And every shape\u2014the leaves, the birds, my\nhand\u2014was like light, changeable and never still. Finally, I remember thinking,\nit has happened.\nMy mother will ask, at dinner or during commercials, if I think it is her fault\nthat my dad is gone. And it is tough to say. I mean, if it's her fault, then it's her\nfault. But I think it is worse if she didn't do anything and he just got tired of her\nregardless.\nTwo days later, Tim came in with four plastic bags. He dumped the contents\nonto the table and they rattled across the glass. \"What'll you give me?\" he asked.\nThere wasn't much there. An old cellphone, a pair of mitts, some kitchenwate.\nI picked up one of the spatulas and used it to start sorting things. On the left, I\nput things like the glue gun, screwdriver, cat's eye marbles, and Star Wars Episode\nIV on VHS. On the right, things like the stuffed panda, tupperware, a couple\nof BBQ lighters, and a Mitt Romney 2012 campaign button. I pointed to the\nVHS. \"I'll give you three seventy-five for this pile. The other one, you can keep.\"\nTim frowned. \"I thought I'd get more. That VHS is a collector's item, you\nprismmagazine.ca 73 know.\"\nI used the spatula to push the tape towards him. \"Well, you should feel free\nto collect it.\"\nTim slid the tape back to me and said he would take the money. As I was\ncounting out the change from the till, Tim shovelled his unwanted stuff back\ninto a plastic bag. When he finished, I handed him the change and he told me\nhe had one more thing. He hoisted up a bag that he had hidden at his feet.\nThe boatd looked exactly the same, varnished so perfectly that there wasn't\neven watet damage. From his coat pocket, he pulled out the pieces and dropped\nthem onto the glass and they rolled in lopsided circles.\n\"Where'd you get this?\" I asked as he lined up the pawns on the board.\n\"Would you believe me,\" he said, \"if I told you the river?\" He put the rooks\nonto their corner spots. \"You know my place? I have my Americano down by the\nwater in the mornings and there's a small eddy that I toss my scone crumbs into\nfor the ducks.\" Instead of saying \"skone\" Tim says \"skon.\" \"A couple days ago,\nwhat do I see dancing in the eddy but,\" he rooted into his pocket, \"this horse.\"\nHe presented it flat on his palm.\n\"It's a knight,\" I said, but he didn't hear.\n\"So each morning I go down to the eddy and there's more and more pieces.\nYesterday,\" he said, \"the whole board floated up.\" I watched as he got the kings\nand queens opposite of where they should be. He had no clue what he was\ndoing. \"Have you ever seen anything like this?\" he asked.\nI was sure there had to be a scientific explanation for this\u2014something\nabout currents. \"It looks like you're missing a piece,\" I said, pointing at the white\nbishop's empty square.\n\"Just the one. But it still has to be worth something.\"\nI shook my head. \"Until the set is complete, nothing.\"\nTim stared down at the undamaged board. He then licked his thumb to\nwork on a scuff in the varnish. I have heard that water always follows the path\nof least resistance. And I suppose that path, like so many other things in this\nlife, must lead directly to Tim's back lawn. As he rubbed his thumb in tight little\ncircles, the board made a terrible whimpering sound.\n\"What are you going to do?\" I asked. \"I can throw it out if you want.\"\n\"I guess,\" Tim said, grabbing the pieces and burying them in his pockets,\n\"I'll just have to pray that bishop shows up.\"\nTim and his plastic bags left the counter, hesitated for a second at the door,\nand then exited. I waited for him to walk out of sight before I unfurled my\nfingers, and there was the pawn that he never noticed had rolled away.\nOne Christmas, when my parents were staying late at a party, I searched their\nroom for gifts. They were at our neighbours' so they didn't bother with a sitter. In\nthe back of my dad's sock drawer I found a ping-pong paddle and an illustrated\nveterinary book of the cross-sections of horses. Behind them was a box of ball\nbearings and a slingshot\u2014a really good one with an arm brace. There were a few\ncandy canes and a ceramic figurine of a coyote I had been asking for.\n74 PRISM 53:3 By Christmas Day, all I could remember that was coming was the coyote\nfigurine. I opened my gifts, hugged my parents, and started the thank-you\ncalls to the relatives I only spoke with once a year. I had laid out my gifts on\nthe kitchen table to keep track of who I was thanking for what. I noticed the\nslingshot was missing. After I searched through the loose pile of wtapping paper,\nI realized I had never opened it. I assumed it had been returned\u2014my mother\nwas always worrying about safety.\nI was on the phone with my aunt and she was telling me about how it\nwas plus ten in Vancouver. She said there were boats out on the ocean and she\ncouldn't decide if she wanted to go kayaking or skiing tomorrow. All the choices\nshe had. While she spoke, I heard a rattling out back. Through the window\nabove the sink, I saw my dad in the yard, a pyramid of beer cans set up against\nthe fence, firing the ball bearings into them, his fist pumping wildly every time\nthe empty aluminium collapsed in response.\nOf course the bishop came floating down to Tim's eddy this morning. I wouldn't\nbe telling this story if it hadn't. And so at lunch today Tim came back and set up\nhis pieces. When he noticed that he was missing a pawn, he dug furiously in his\ncoat pockets and pulled the lining inside out.\n\"Look,\" I said, \"when you're carrying them around in your coat, this is going\nto happen. The board's not worth much anyways. I'll give you five fifty for it.\"\nIt's worth closer to five hundred. It is Belizean mahogany\u2014something called\n\"heirloom quality.\" If he had looked beneath the base of each king, he would\nhave seen a \"W,\" the mark of Westminster. Dad told me all of this when he gave\nit to me.\nBut then it occurred to me that maybe Tim does know this. He was the one\nwho went to London with my dad, was the one waiting for him on the other side\nof customs. I pictured Tim standing with my dad in a department store aisle, my\ndad emphasizing the difference between farmed and old-growth mahogany. Tim\nplacing a hand on my dad's shoulder, telling him it is late and they should get\nback to the hotel. Then Tim squeezing his shoulder, saying, \"It's late. Very late.\"\nI wondered if my dad got anything for Tim. Something to remember\nLondon. And I was comforted to know that I will never see it, that whatever it\nis, it will never be in the garage sales or come into the shop but will stay hidden\nin his home, safe on the mantel or in the top drawer of his nightstand.\nI looked up from the boatd to catch Tim staring at me. He looked older than\nI remembered him being, having aged so much in these past five years. And I\nthought, in a different life, we could have loved each other\u2014or at least hated\neach other.\n\"Has anyone ever told you,\" Tim said, \"that you look so much like your\nfathet?\" I shrugged. \"You know,\" he said, \"I miss him all the time.\" He reached\nacross the jewellery case and put both hands over mine. \"I feel like I can't tell\nanyone that,\" he said, \"and that makes it so much harder.\" I felt his palm gather\nheat and become damp over mine. \"I love you like a son,\" he said. \"Do you\nunderstand me, Jeremy? Like a son.\"\nI took the board and held it up to the light. \"There's also a couple scuffs here.\nprismmagazine.ca 75 I can't go higher than six.\"\nTim shoved his hands into his pockets, felt for the pawn one last time, and\nnodded. I pulled a crumpled five out of my jeans and was rooting around for a\nloonie when he told me that five was fine and left.\nSometimes the things people buy are even worse than what they sell. They swing\nbetween worthless and invaluable, but most people don't understand which is\nwhich, even if the price tag is right in front of them.\nTonight, when I got home, my mother was sitting on the couch with the TV\nblaring and curlers in her hair. The room was dark and the television fluttered\nits light across her face and glared off her glasses. I went into my room and shut\nthe door behind me. I took out the pieces and carefully set them up. The rooks,\nknights, bishops. The kings and queens. The rows of pawns, stating at each other\nacross their checkered field of battle, their small bodies trembling with hate.\nI waited until the sun had finished burying itself before I took my backpack\nand went down to the river. On my way, I walked past the diner, and through\nits large window I saw Tim, slumped over a roast beef special and strawberry\nmilkshake. The first time he came into the shop, when he was looking for John, I\nsmelled gin on him. Nothing strong, but it was there. In the diner, he dabbed the\ncorners of his lips with the paper napkin, placed it back on his lap, and then kept\neating. He held the knife and fork gingerly, like they were brittle beyond belief.\nIn that light, I thought he looked more like me than my father did. I shifted my\nweight and the corner of the chessboard pressed against my spine. I watched him\ntake his final couple bites and then sip the last of his milkshake, taking the straw\nout of rhe glass to lick it before he placed it on his plate with his napkin overtop\nand his cutlery over that. His life of chores, routines, and idle pleasantries.\nFor months after my dad was gone, I would think that I had seen him out\nof the corner of my eye. Though it was only ever a floor lamp, or a pair of water\nskis, or an inflatable palm tree. One time it was the jacket that he had left on the\nchair. I looked for him everywhere, but all I ever found were things.\nThe waitress came and cleared Tim's table as he smiled at het. And while Tim\nsat alone, waiting fot the cheque, his hands in his lap, there was this stillness\nabout him, a look of terrible honesty. A look I caught on my own face earlier\nthis morning, when I was teaching myself how to shave, when afterwards, in the\nmitror, I saw all the nicks and slices that dotted my jaw and cheeks and lips. Red\ndroplets blossomed against the porcelain and then spiralled into the drain until\nall that remained in the yawing sink was a thin line of blood.\n76 PRISM 53:3 Todd Boss is a poet, public artist, and film producer in Minneapolis. His\npoetry collections are Pitch (2012, W. W Norton) and Yellowrocket (2008). His\npoems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and\nNPR. He is the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, a\nnonprofit initiative that partnets with major publishers and film companies to\nturn contempotary poems into short films.\nDiane Bracuk is a Toronto writer. Her stories have been published in periodicals\nin Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. Her short story collection Middle-Aged\nBoys & Girls will be published by Guernica Editions in Spring 2016.\nNicholas Bradley lives in Victoria, British Columbia.\nMichelle Brown's work has appeared in CV2, Arc, 'The Malahat Review, and\nEcholocation, and was recently shortlisted for CV2's Young Buck Poetry Prize.\nShe lives, writes, eats, and sleeps in Toronto.\nAnn Cavlovic's creative writing and essays have appeared in EVENT, Room,\nsub Terrain, The Globe and Mail, The Centennial Reader, Alternatives, and the\nttavel anthology This Place a Stranger (Caitlin Press, forthcoming). Ann wrote\nEmissions: A Climate Comedy, the \"Best in Fest\" winner of the 2013 Ottawa\nFringe festival, anncavlovic.com\nCharles Demers is a Vancouver comedian, author, and playwright. He has\nperformed in clubs and festivals across the country, and as a regular guest on\nCBC's The Debaters and This is That. He is the author of The Prescription Errors\nand Vancouver Special (finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize), as well\nas the forthcoming collection of humour essays, The Horrors.\nJonpaul Douglass is an American photographer whose fascination with the\nbeauty and mystery of everyday life has led him on a journey of constant artistic\nexpression. Douglass's photographs bend the imagination and leave toom for\nendless narrative possibilities. Douglass currently resides in Los Angeles, CA,\nwhere he works as a commercial photographer.\nKaty E. Ellis studied writing at the University of Victoria and at Western\nWashington University. She is the author of two chapbooks and her poetry has\nappeared in many literary journals in the US and in Canada. She teaches writing\nto school kids and lives in Seattle. KatyEEUis.com\nDaniela Elza's poetry collections are the weight of dew, the book of It, and,\nmost recently, milk tooth bane bone. Her work has appeared nationally and\ninternationally in over 100 publications. Daniela was the 2014 Writer-In-\nResidence at the University of the Fraser Valley and the 2014 guest editor of\nSimon Fraser University's emerge anthology.\nprismmagazine.ca 77 Nora Gould's second book, Joy, breathe, is forthcoming with Brick Books (Fall\n2016). Her first book, I see my love more clearly from a distance (Brick Books,\n2012), won the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (AB) and the Robert\nKroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize.\nRichard Kelly Kemick has been published in journals and magazines across\nCanada and the United States. His debut collection of poetry, Caribou Run, is\nset for publication in Spring 2016 by Goose Lane Editions.\nEvelyn Lau is a Vancouver writer who has published eleven books, including six\nvolumes of poetry. Her work has received the Milton Acorn Award, a National\nMagazine Award, and a Governor General's nomination. Her most recent\ncollection, A Grain of Rice (Oolichan, 2012), was shortlisted for the Dorothy\nLivesay Poetry Prize and the Pat Lowther Award. Evelyn served as Poet Laureate\nfor the City of Vancouvet from 2011-2014.\nSarah Mitchell is a non-fiction and fiction writer living in Victoria, BC. She\nhas previously been published in the anthology Coastal Voices, the short story\ncollection The Memory Machine, and on the website canlitisdead.com. Sarah\nstudies creative writing at the University of Victoria.\nScott Nadelson is the author of three short story collections, most recently\nAftermath, and a memoir, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Progress. His work\nhas recently appeared in Ploughshares, Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, and\nPassages North and has been cited as notable in Best American Stories and Best\nAmerican Essays.\nAngela Rebrec is a writer, singer, and graphic artist whose poetry has appeared\nin filling Station and is forthcoming in EVENT. She lives in Delta, BC with her\nthree children, cat, and long-suffering husband.\nGreg Rhyno lives in Guelph, Ontario with his partner Sarah and their two\nchildren. He is currently at work on his first novel.\nDerek Sheffield's book of poems, Through the Second Skin (Orchises, 2013), was\na finalist for the Washington State Book Award. He teaches poetry and nature\nwriting at Wenatchee Valley College and edits poetry for Terrain.org. He lives\nwith his family in the foothills of the Cascades near Leavenworth, Washington.\nPatrick Warner is the author of four collections of poetry. He lives in St. John's,\nNewfoundland. \"L'Immigrant\" was inspired by his daughter's spelling bee\npractice list. What stood out to him was the degree to which foreign words had\nbeen assimilated into English. Many are still highly visible while others, because\nthey are so commonly used, are not. This made him think about the immigrant,\nwhose ultimate fate is to become largely invisible within the host culture.\nMargo Wheaton lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her poems have appeared in\na number of journals and anthologies including The Antigonish Review, The\nFiddlehead, Prairie Fire, CV2, and Undercurrents: New Voices in Canadian Poetry.\n78 PRISM 53:3 information + submission subterrain.ca\n1 F^BE MAY 15> 2015 $6,000\nIN CASH PRIZES!\n1ST PRIZE $1,250-\u2014\n2ND PRIZE $500 \u2014\n3RD PRIZE $250 \u2014-\nTHE BANFF CENTRE BLISS\nCARMAN POETRY AWARD'\n(1,2 or 3 poems per entry,\nmax. 150 lines per entry)\nJudge: Ken Babstock\nSHORT FICTION\n(one story per entry,\nmax. 10,000 words)\nJudge: Diane Schoemperlen\nCREATlf I NON-FICTION\n(one essay per entry,\nmax. 5,000 words)\nJudge: Fred Stenson\nDEADLINE:\nPOSTMARKED\nNOV. 30,2015\n423-100 Arthur St.\nWinnipeg, MB R3B1H3\nPh: (204) 943-9066\nwww.prairiefire.ca\nComplete guidelines for all\ncontests at www.prairiefire.ca\nFor inquiries: prfire@mts.net\nCONTEST WINNERS AND HONOURABLE MENTIONS\nWILL BE PUBLISHED IN PRAIRIE FIRE MAGAZINE\nFee: S32 per entry, which includes a complimentary\none-year subscription to Prairie Fire.\n'The Poetry first prize is donated in part by TJie Banff Centre,\noho will also award ajeneller-cast replica of poet Bliss\nCarman's silver and turquoise ring to the first-prize winner. Classic Yet Contemporary\nThe UK's Oldest and Most Prestigious Literature and Arts Magazine\nEnjoy new and past issues of this unforgettable magazine which has endured for over 280 years.\nEnjoy outstanding work from new and established writers including: Michael Morpurgo, Roger Scruton,\nHelen Dttnmore. Christopher Reitl, Suzi Feay pius many more\nthelondonmagazine.org\/digital-stiibscriptions\nY>*ess\nsViit\\ey\no^1*\nNearly 40 years of great Canadian poetry.\nTURNSTON EXPRESS\nturnstonepress.com &jf?smr.\n\u2022 iii<\n\u00a9peettive Writer*!\nRolex is proud to be the printer\nfor PRISM international.\nROLEX\n$ PLASTICS &\nM PRINTING LTD\nwww.rolexplastics.com Call Toll-free 1-888-478-5553 The Creative Writing Program at U.B.C.\n,\nThe University of British Columbia offers both\na Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master\nof Pine Arts degree in Creative Writing. The\nM.F.A. degree may also he taken by distance\neducation. See our website for more details.\nStudents work in multiple genres, including:\nPoetry, Novel\/Novella, Short Fiction, Stage\nPlay, Screen 8e TV Play, Radio Play, Writing for\nChildren, Non-fiction, Translation, and Song\nLyrics &\u25a0 Libretto.\nSteven Galloway\nNancy Lee\nAnnabel Lyon\nKeith Maillard\nMaureen Medved\nFaculty\nAndreas Schroeder\nLinda Svendsen\nTimothy Taylor\nPeggy Thompson\nRhea Tregebov\nBryan Wade\nOnline Faculty CM.F.A.):\nLuanne Armstrong, Gail Anderson-Dargatz,\nJoseph Boyden, Brian Brett, Sioux Browning,\nMaggie deVries, Zsuzsi Gartner, Terry Glavin,\nWayne Grady, Sara Graefe, Stephen Hunt,\nPeter Levitt, Susan Musgrave &? Karen Solie\nwww.creativewriting.ubc.ca PRISM is contemporary writing\n53:3\nTodd Boss\nDiane Bracuk\nNicholas Bradley\nMichelle Brown\nAnn Cavlovic\nCharles Demers\nKaty E. Ellis\nDaniela Elza\nNora Gould\nRichard Kelly Kemick\nEvelyn Lau\nSarah Mitchell\nScott Nadelson\nAngela Rebrec\nGreg Rhyno\nDerek Sheffield\nPatrick Warner\nMargo Wheaton\n03\n7 ' 72006 \" 86361' 2\nCover image \u00a9 Jonpaul Douglass, \"Pizza Pug 2.'","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2009\/08\/skos-reference\/skos.html#note","classmap":"oc:AnnotationContainer"},"iri":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2009\/08\/skos-reference\/skos.html#note","explain":"Simple Knowledge Organisation System; Notes are used to provide information relating to SKOS concepts. 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Recommended best practice is to use an encoding scheme, such as the W3CDTF profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF]."}],"Subject":[{"label":"Subject","value":"Creative writing Periodicals","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/subject","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:subject"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/subject","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; The topic of the resource.; Typically, the subject will be represented using keywords, key phrases, or classification codes. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary."},{"label":"Subject","value":"Poetry--Periodicals","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/subject","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:subject"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/subject","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; The topic of the resource.; Typically, the subject will be represented using keywords, key phrases, or classification codes. 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