{"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.14288\/1.0135388":{"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/terms#identifierAIP":[{"value":"4a655379-2634-4db1-84a0-44b42821f3f2","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/dataProvider":[{"value":"CONTENTdm","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/alternative":[{"value":"Prism international 51:1 \/ Fall 2012","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isReferencedBy":[{"value":"http:\/\/resolve.library.ubc.ca\/cgi-bin\/catsearch?bid=1215619","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/isPartOf":[{"value":"Prism international","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/creator":[{"value":"Prism international","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/issued":[{"value":"2015-08-10","type":"literal","lang":"en"},{"value":"2012-10","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/description":[{"value":"The following description is provided by the publisher:
FICTION
\u201cMan of New Skin\u201d by Gerald Fleming
\u201cSparrowbush\u201d by Dennis McFadden
\u201cThe House That Modern Art Built\u201d by Rebecca Rosenblum
NON-FICTION
\u201cDandelion\u201d by Sherry Wong
DRAMA
\u201cHoudini\u201d by Kirby Wright
TRANSLATION
\u201cStories Adrift\u201d by Melanie Taylor-Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Christina Vega-Westhoff
POETRY
Two Poems by Kathryn Dillard
Three Poems by Michael Quilty
Two Poems by Elizabeth Hoover
Two Poems by Matt McLean
Three Poems by Julie Paul
Two Poems by Esther Mazakian
Three Poems by Ben LaDouceur
COVER IMAGE
\u201cLandscapes IV\u201d by Levi van Veluw, courtesy of Ron Mandos Gallery","type":"literal","lang":"en"},{"value":"","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/aggregatedCHO":[{"value":"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/collections\/prism\/items\/1.0135388\/source.json","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/extent":[{"value":"79 Pages","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/elements\/1.1\/format":[{"value":"application\/pdf","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2009\/08\/skos-reference\/skos.html#note":[{"value":" PRJSM\nV\nit'\ninternational\n51:1 \/FALL 2012\nI \u25a0 \u25a0\n;.-\ny*.\nJ.S*\n'\"\" PRISM internationa\n2012 EARLE BIRNEY PRIZE FOR POETRY\nPRISM internationalis proud to announce the 2012 Earle Birney Prize\nfor Poetry. This prize is presented annually to one outstanding poet\nselected from our outgoing Poetry Editor's volume. This year's winner is\nLesley Battler for her piece \"Doing Business With Poets,\" which first\nappeared in PRISM 50.1.\nEarle Birney established UBC's MFA program in Creative Writing in\n1965\u2014the first university writing program in Canada. The Earle Birney\nprize, awarded annually and worth $500, is PRISMs only in-house\nprize. Special thanks to Mme. Justice Wailan Low for her generous\nongoing support. PRISM\ninternational\nFICTION EDITOR\nAnna Ling Kaye\nPOETRY EDITOR\nLeah Horlick\nEXECUTIVE EDITORS\nSierra Skye Gemma\nJen Neale\nADVISORY EDITOR\nRhea Tregebov\nDESIGNER\nandrea bennett\nEDITORIAL BOARD\nCara Cole\nJane Campbell\nRosemary Anderson\nAlison Cobra\nHanako Masutani\nMichelle Turner PRISM international, a magazine of contemporary writing, is published four times\na year by the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia,\nBuchanan E-462, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1. Microfilm editions\nare available from University Microfilms Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, and reprints from\nthe Ktaus Reprint Corporation, New York, NY. The magazine is listed by the\nCanadian Literary Periodicals Index.\nWebsite: prismmagazine.ca. Email: prismcirculation@gmail.com.\nContents Copyright \u00a9 2012 PRISM international for the authors.\nCover illustration: \"Landscapes IV\" by Levi van Veluw, courtesy of Ron Mandos\nGallery.\nSubscription Rates: One-year individual Canadian $35, American $40, International\n$45; two-yeat individual Canadian $55, American $63, International $69; library\nand institutional one-year $46; two-year $72. Sample copy by mail is $12. US and\nintetnational subscribers, please pay in US dollars. Please note that US POSTAL\nmoney orders are not accepted. Make cheques payable to PRISM international. All\nprices include HST and shipping and handling.\nSubmission Guidelines: PRISM international purchases First North American Serial\nRights at $40 per page for poetry and $20 per page for othet gentes. Contributors\nreceive three copies of the issue in which their work appears. PRISM also purchases\nlimited digital rights for selected work, for which it pays an additional $ 10 per page.\nAll manuscripts should be sent to the editors at the above address. Manuscripts\nshould be accompanied by an email address. If you wish to receive your response by\nregular mail, please include a SASE with Canadian stamps or International Reply\nCoupons. Translations should be accompanied by a copy of the work(s) in the\noriginal language. The advisory editor is not tesponsible for individual selections,\nbut fot the magazines ovetall mandate, including continuity, quality and budgetary\nconcerns.\nFor details on how to place an advertisement in PRISM, please visit our website at\nprismmagazine.ca\/advertise. PRISM occasionally exchanges subscriber lists with\nother literary magazines; please contact us if you wish to be excluded from such\nexchanges.\nOur gratitude to Dean Gage Averill and the Dean of Aits Office at the Univetsity\nof British Columbia. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the\nCanada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.\nOctober 2012. ISSN 0032.8790\nBRITISH COLUMBIA *\u00a7\u00a7\u00a7 Canada Council Conseil des Arts\nARI'S COUNCIL <3d> A* the Art* du Canada CONTENTS\nACTION\nGerald Fleming\n9\nMan of New Skin\nDennis McFadden\n42\nSparrowbush\nRebecca Rosenblum\n66\nThe House That Modem Art Built\nNON-FICTION\nSherry Wong\n16\nDRAMA\nDandelion\nKirby Wright\n26\nHoudini\nTRANSLATION\nMelanie Taylor Herrera\n59\nStories Adrift\nTranslation by\nChristina Vega-WesthofF\nPOETRY\nKathryn Dillard\n5\nCome By Here\n7\nDithyramb\nMichael Quilty\n13\nConcussion 1\n14\nConcussion 22\n15\nPost Concussion 3318\nElizabeth Hoover\n23\nPhotographing the Tanager Bar\n24\nInquiry: Colour\nMatt McLean\n40\nout here\n41\nGood Morning\nJulie Paul\n56\nMr. Johnson's Son\n57\nCoastal Romance\n58\nAdvice\nEsther Mazakian\n63\nSlug Populations\n64\nClinch\n65\nGestational Stock\nBen Ladouceur\n75\nI Am In Love With Your Brother\n76\nMiddle Names\n77\nGran Vals\nContributors\n78 Kathryn Dillard\nCOME BY HERE\nBut just as you feel uncertain\nof solitude, it keeps you solid.\nYou grip. You grip too fast.\nLet go of the oar. Let go of the oar.\nIt is not yours to fondle. Feathers?\nYes he was feathers and feathets\nand crystal chimes when the water\nhit his shoulders, your boat as still\nas a mirror waiting its turn\nto be seen until the sun chipped its sides.\nBut I see you've taken to driving\nwith the windows down to be\nin the midst of my voice, a voice\nsoftly spun in lightning bolts\nas you rumble on the dark country road,\nstill besides his wine in your sockets.\nHis sleep is only seeking its own level,\nand a man who is full of himself\nwill never know the weight\nof a woman pressing into his folds.\nAnd so you watch for hinges, and see\nhis smoke flutter from all angles.\nYou start a little fire out of one\nfine afternoon at yout gtandmother's\nwhen you ate so many cherries\nyou were almost sick with gtief\nprismmagazine.ca and just as the juniper bushes\nwhispered your quills erupted flowers\nas if he was caught on the cremated\nstems ofiogic left singing in your arms.\nThere there now we can't be\nin flux like this, stuck on mothers\nand muses when the dirt must be\nmore particular in its cadence.\nPRISM 51:1 DITHYRAMB\nIf this was your sailboat, it would not be\nthe colours of his feminine rainbow\nbut the wave you become when I\nsing you to sleep at the kitchen table.\nThat lyte is not an instrument\nbut a way of beating around the house,\ntinkering with colours you know will burn\nwhen mixed with the thinner edges of his totso.\nI hear you like the glistening fur of his torso,\nevery swatch sinking you furthet into pastures,\nand I hear you go out for a slouch at his room,\nthis flannel toughened pretty boy on tap\nlike the bright music tapering out his window.\nHe made beastly lines on you with his fur\nand somehow you must taper to a glistening\nthat becomes you but you are a red ribbon\nfluttering on the fence post with a suit\nof moles that keep the thundethead coming.\nAnd you turn to the mirror after the fucker\ntook you under his pallid bust as if to check\nif he dismembeted you but this pose no matter\nhow classical is like looking at the sun\nto witness the eatth flying through your legs.\nBut the ditt between your toes after the run.\nYou slipped the rope off the post\nand out I came in feathered skin\nprismmagazine.ca and you asked me if I was hot\nbefore you offered me your wet fingers\nand all I did was simply shake a little\nand make crystal sounds until you made\na Ferris wheel out of the flower in your hand\nand you tumbled off the wooden edges\nas if I was the stem and it was improper to blow\nme off into a field one little fire of an afternoon.\nPRISM 51:1 Gerald Fleming\nMAN OF NEW SKIN\nA man of granite was composing a letter to a friend and paused a moment,\nstaring, seeking just the right word, and found it, chiseled it, and when he\nlooked down again he was inside a room in a third-floor city apartment, and he\nwas covered with skin. It was all over him: his toes were skin, his feet, all the way\nup his belly and chest, arms, hands, head, everywhere.\nFor a minute he was afraid: he'd heard of skin, heard it described, heard\nthat when a certain word was carved something like this might happen, but\nhe certainly didn't know the word, and anyway this was an old Sedimentarian\nlegend, and he was an Ignean, didn't believe it. His life so far had been no fairy\nstory, that's for sure.\nThe man put his chisel down. He touched his left arm with his right hand.\nSmooth! Gliding right over it! And this hand, he thought\u2014look how it can\nbend! The fingets flex! And the colour so pretty\u2014a kind of tan like sand, not at\nall like me.\nHe stood up, went to the big mirror. He shimmied a little, and his skin\nshimmied, too. He chuckled. Then he touched his body slowly, from top to toe.\nThis feels so good, he thought, and remembered how hard he'd had to knock his\nchest to get any feeling at all when he was stone.\nThen he was afraid that if he'd turned to skin so quickly, he might just as\nquickly turn back to stone.\nI'd better learn what it's like to have skin while I have it, he thought, and he\nhurried to the window and looked out. Everything looked different. He saw two\nblue signs below; they both statted with the word Rue. They must be street signs,\nhe figured, but in the land of stone, streets like this wete called Fissure.\nBut he was only confused for a moment. It was attractive out there\u2014trees\nand a wide flat place to walk and other skin-people walking in the way that his\nbody could move now, so much more quickly, more quietly than in the land of\nstone.\nBut down there they had most of their skin covered with something, only\ntheir heads and hands not covered. Odd thing, he thought: have skin, cover it.\nHe saw that the sun was shining and wanted to feel its heat\u2014he loved that\nwhen he was granite\u2014and he bounded down the stairs\u2014soundlessly, it seemed\nto him, and out into the street, where he joined the skin-people walking.\nIn sun he could see tiny haits, very thin, all over his skin, and when he walked\nhe felt the wind buffeting his ears, breaking around his face. It was thrilling. He\ncouldn't stop smiling. As he walked he loved the feeling of the rounded stones\nunder his feet. One would get undet his toes, then anothef undet his heel. He\nliked that feeling very much, for stone hardly feels stone where he came from.\nprismmagazine.ca \"Isn't this exciting?\" he said to a man he was passing, but the man looked\naway.\nHe came to a crowded street now, giggling as his feet felt the grates of a\nsubway, as its blast of hot air blew his hair, laughing as he turned a corner and\nfound anothet wind.\nHe looked down at his body and saw that his penis was bouncing up and\ndown as he walked\u2014that never happened in stone\u2014and he thought it funny,\nand again began laughing, walking faster to watch it jiggle faster, and he just had\nto shate his joy with somebody, so he looked over to his fellow wind-walkers and\nsaid, \"My penis is jiggling!\" But for some reason they stopped walking, none of\nthem joining in his laughter\u2014a few, though, smiling, turning, continuing on\ntheir way. What a grouchy place, he thought.\nWhen he got to the corner, two kind men wearing cloth of the same colour\nblue talked to him. He was grateful for conversation. \"We have to take you\nsomewhere, Sir\u2014please come with us.\"\nOne man took his arm and led him to a cat. \"Your hand feels so good on\nmy arm,\" said the man of new skin, but, to his disappointment, the man in blue\ncloth let go.\nWhat happened then was confusing. He was in a new place where kind\npeople wore white cloths instead of blue, and he had the sense that he'd better\nnot talk too much, because in their kindness people might want to talk in return,\nand all he really wanted was to get back into that sun, that wind.\nThey put him on a table and touched him in many places, and he liked that\nand said, \"No, of course that doesn't hurt, it feels great,\" and they asked him\nmany why's, and he kept saying, \"I just wanted to feel the sun and wind on my\nskin,\" and they said he had no \"record,\" that he was not considered \"dangerous\"\n(\"dangerous\" was an important word in the land of stone, \"record\" he'd never\nheard). They gave him some cloth, helped him put it on, told him he had to keep\nwearing it, and let him go.\n\"We don't want to see you here again,\" they said as he left, and he wondered\nwhy they'd suddenly become so unfriendly. Even in the land of stone it was\ntraditional to say \"Drop by any time\" to a person leaving.\nOn the way home it began to rain: a warm, almost invisible rain that at first\nonly wet his face, and he felt the rain must be a kind of gift; the hairs on his head\ndripped, droplets of water wet his face, found their way into his mouth. Then it\nrained harder, and he saw that his fellow walkers shielded themselves from the\ntain: sttange half-domes of coloured cloth bursting upwatd everywhere.\nHe was agitated\u2014felt outside their world.\nIf I only took oft my top cloth I could feel the rain on my chest, he thought,\nand did so, and people didn't stop this time\u2014they looked at him and looked\naway, and that was OK with the man. Soon the dtops wete coming too fast to\ncount, but they were counted somewhere by his skin, he was sure, as if a reservoir\nof happiness was being filled.\nWhen he got home, the man of new skin stood in front of a mirror and\nlooked. Droplets of water all over his body, all over his face. He felt he'd been to\n10 PRISM 51:1 a feast where no one but he was eating. Lie was tired, and went to bed.\nThe next day was bright, and hot, and he walked, fully covered with cloth,\nfeeling great to be alive and in skin, but somehow deprived.\nHe loved touching his own skin so much that he wanted to see what other\nskin felt like, so at a stoplight he saw a man with big naked arms and went up to\nhim and put both hands around the big part of the man's arms and said, \"Nice\nskin!\"\n\"Thanks,\" the man said. \"Want to come up to my place?\" \"Oh, no,\" said the\nman of new skin, \"I just wanted to touch yout arm.\"\nAt another stoplight there was a woman with a long wrap of cloth that\nstarted at the very top of her legs; even in cloth, he liked the round shape of\nher from behind, and he was sure she wouldn't mind if he stood next to het\nand just tan his hand down that shape to learn about the skin in there. So he\ndid, and she gave him a most unpleasant look, and stepped away from him, and\nwhen the light turned green she walked quickly away. Though he was hurt by\nher unfriendliness, still, he thought, this is a bettet day than yestetday. That day\nstarted out fun, but got confusing.\nHe came to a man sitting on the walkway and holding out his hand. The\nman had a huge nose, and the man of new skin touched the man's nose, and\nthe sitting man didn't seem to mind at all. It was like stone, really\u2014pocked and\nchipped and blue-veined\u2014but warm, and the man of new skin liked the way the\ntips of his fingers could know the difference between the in of those pores and\nthe out.\nAs he walked on he noticed that he liked to watch the women's breasts. Some\nmoved in quick circles as the women walked, circles independent of one another,\nand it appeared that some breasts under their cloths were harder, some softer.\nThis was never true in the land of stone. All the women's bteasts were hard in\nthe land of stone, and when women walked not much really moved, especially\nin the Igneans. Every once in a while some Sedimentarians came into town, and\nif you looked very closely, you could notice a shift in their parts as they moved.\nEven in the land of stone the man liked this very much, but here in the land of\nskin it was glorious.\nSo in the middle of the walkway the man saw a woman coming toward him,\nand he said, \"Stop, please,\" and put his left hand on her left breast and said,\n\"Thank you, that was instructive, that felr very nice.\"\nBut this was not at all the same as when he felt the man's arm at the corner.\nThe woman hit the man of new skin very hard on his face. The whole side of his\nface felt hot.\n\"That certainly wasn't called for,\" said the man of new skin, but there was\nshouting all atound and again men in blue cloth came, different men this time,\nthese not as kind, and they took his arm roughly and led him away.\nFor days, then, everything was confusing. They put him in a room made of\nsquare stones, people came and talked to him about what he did, put him on\n\"trial,\" said cruel things about him, and put him in anothet stone room alone for\nthirty days.\nAt last he was freed: delighted again to be walking in wind, headed home.\nprismmagazine.ca 11 But again things got confusing. As he passed a comer near his home a pretty\nwoman wrapped in a very short cloth was leaning against a building. She asked\nhim something\u2014something he had to ask her to repeat, something that seemed\nto be about an offer of employment in the service of wind. Seeing that she was\nnot like the other women on the street\u2014so unfriendly in this warm land of\nskin\u2014he of course said yes, he'd like that very much, and that he was ready to be\nemployed.\n\"No,\" she said. \"Not here. Come up to my room in that hotel over there.\"\nAnd so they went to the room and the woman showed that indeed she was a\nwoman of skin, and without at all referring to the promised employment she\ntouched his body in many ways until he felt confused, cloudlike, until he felt\nthat he was snowing onto his own stone, as if he himself were the first snow of\nthe new year in his old world.\n\"Stay with me,\" he said, but she stood and put on her cloth and asked for\nmoney. \"I didn't know you wanted money for this,\" he said, \"I'm unprepared.\nPerhaps I'll have it after that employment you spoke about,\" he said.\nSoon there was a man in the room with big arms like the man on the corner,\nbut nowhere near as friendly. The man struck him, right there on the bed\u2014did\nnot even allow him to stand, to ask the questions he still had.\nThere is no pain like that of a man of stone who has become a man of skin\nand is beaten, and he wept deeply, not knowing how to defend himself against\nthe blows, their increase.\nThese people, too, sent him home.\nWhen he got home all his skin pulsed with pain, and he turned on the light\nand saw himself in the mirror. Many new colours, stone-like colouts, but much\nred, too.\nHe wanted to go stone again, to go gtanite, to be with his hard-fired,\nconsistent people.\nBut all his brittle wishes did nothing. He went to the window and looked at\nthe pavement in envy. There was nothing he could do. He did nor cause himself\nto leave the land of stone, and he could not cause himself to go back. He stayed\nin the land of skin.\nHe is among us. I know him. And I can tell you that every once in a while, late\nat night, the man of new skin climbs to the roof of his building, strips oft his\ncloth, and stands in the rain. Then he puts on the cloth again and goes back in.\n12 PRISM 51:1 Michael Quilly\nCONCUSSION 1\nSo long ago\nI couldn't name stars.\nSo forgotten\nit was unthinkable.\nOn the other team,\nthere was always\na farm boy\ngrowing more than anyone else.\nOn our bench,\na well-drummed coach\ntapping helmets, calling,\nGet the fuck back out there!\nprismmagazine.ca 13 CONCUSSION 22\nMelon like a soft volleyball\ndubbed Wilson in the movie,\nkicked from island to island\nacross nights of rough dreams.\nIf only a net or sharp-finned\ncetacean would caress and inflate\nme\u2014I'd be a coconut again.\n14 PRISM 51:1 POST CONCUSSION 3318\nDreams give currency to the soul. Repair\nis depth\u2014a chosen childhood friend. In school\nwe vetted the centre of town, sold packages\nbehind the vacuum shop. Alleyways\nare flame-retatdant animals,\nand photos of dead babies\ncome to life when they want to defeat us.\nSmokey illustrated a war zone,\nbut he smiles now and says, I didn't\nreally knoiv. How do you not pick sides?\nThe football navels end\nover end. Smokey is fast and mischievous,\nyet he and the ball always land separately.\nWhy is Dhaka so busy\nat 3 am? This cough floods, wakes up.\nWe see each other sweeping the deck,\nentertaining disparate parties. Can you make a meal\non watered grass? Rodent!! The stadium is full\nof strange acquaintances.\nWe are wax. Odours do not sleep, blank sheets\nroll and roll rattling arms and flexible moustache.\nWe've forgotten where we are,\nwhat candle made us lighten.\nprismmagazine.ca 15 Sherry Wong\nDANDELION\nJL have seen his type. Bold, very bold indeed. The moment he speaks, I know\nthat he is Russian. While we are having our first dance, just after we exchange our\nnames, he asks, with a silly grin, \"Are you looking for some kind of relationship?\"\nHow can he be so bold? But of course, he is an immigrant. The locals are not so\nbold. They would not ask you this question so soon aftef meeting you. I tell him,\n\"I am here just to dance.\"\nOnce in a while, I come to this ballroom dance studio in the Canadian city\nwhere I live, just to dance. I like the music, the oil paintings of beautiful men\nand women dancing, the big mirrors on the east and west walls, and the shining\nhardwood floor. Most of the dancers are middle-aged like me. Sometimes I chat,\nbut more often I dance or watch others dance. Years ago, I wanted to cry when\nI saw married couples dancing beautifully togethet in such grace and harmony.\nI could see the tenderness in their eyes.\nHow is it that I, an honour student in China, a perfectly preserved virgin\nuntil married at age twenty-eight, an abused wife who had never cheated on\nher husband, a woman who spent thousands of dollats on in vitro fertilization\ntreatments using donor sperms, ends up alone in a ballroom studio? The way\nto make a heart tougher is to do the things that hurt you over and over, like\nworking out. That is what I have been doing. I've gone dancing alone so many\ntimes that my heart turns to rubber, tough and dull.\nThen this Russian, like a beat, finds his prey. I know his type, because I was\nhunted once before, by Dancing Fox. I called him Dancing Fox because he was\na dancer and he was cunning. The moment Dancing Fox laid eyes on me, he\nturned on his charm, and pursued me. I was actually a little scared. I had never\ndated an Iranian, had never known one, and had not even looked closely at\none. Okay, they might not all be wife-beaters, but for sure they don't give their\nwomen a lot of rights. They put them in the kitchen. That was what scared me.\nCall me quick to stereotype. At least 1 have guts to admit it.\nDancing Fox was very average-looking. About five feet ten, medium build,\nblack haif, bushy eyebrows, wearing glasses and clean-shaven. My dance with\nthe Fox began with the thought it wouldn't hurt just to dance with him. So we\ndanced. Then, it wouldn't hurt to chat with him after the dance, so we chatted, in\nthe moonlight, beside a lilac tree. The warmth of the Canadian summer air and\nthe fragrance of the flowers reminded me of my childhood in my home town,\na northern Chinese city. Then, it wouldn't hurt to answer his calls. Finally, when\nDancing Fox invited me for dinner, I decided it was too much.\n\"How about my husband and my five children?\" I asked in a serious tone.\nHe had invited me to dinner without bothering to ask if I was single or not.\nThis is why I say new immigrants are very bold. If they weren't, they wouldn't be\n16 PRISM 51:1 in Canada. Once upon a time, I was bold too, but not any more, not after living\nhere for twenty years.\nDancing Fox had the cheekiness to say, \"Your husband can come, but I am\nnot sure about your five children.\"\nSo, on a chilly October evening, he came to my door, picked me up, and\ndrove me to a restaurant. We had a long conversation. He promptly paid for\nthe dinner, and drove me home. At least he did not expect me to go Dutch, like\nmany Canadians do. Back in China, dating or not, men always pay. If a group of\npeople dine out, men fight for the bill. If a group of women go out, every woman\nfights fot the bill.\nAfter Dancing Fox parked his car on my driveway, he surprised me by taking\nout a bouquet of flowets, with no leaves, from his car trunk. I asked him why he\nhad left the flowers in the cat, where they might freeze.\n\"I was afraid you are married,\" he said. \"I didn't want to get a black eye by\nshowing up at your doorstep with flowers.\"\nSo he was worried. That was cute.\nAnd now this Russian Bear is even bolder. He doesn't bother to go through\nthe motions of dinner, the movies, and flowers. He simply charges straight\ntoward me, and wants to know right away if I am available. We're meeting in\na dance studio, I think, not in a bar, or at a speed-dating event. Anyway, my\nanswer is no. I have somebody, an online relationship with a wonderful man\nwho writes beautiful poems and lives a few thousand miles away. That will do\nfor me. I can survive on hope for a very long time.\nSo we just dance.\nLike a fox, Dancing Fox always placed his feet carefully in the right places.\nHe seldom made mistakes. When I danced with him, I didn't have to wotry\nabout unexpected dfamatic effects or creative variations. Russian Beaf, on the\nother hand, can easily lift me up, or dip and catch me with that silly grin on his\nface. He doesn't pay too much attention to patterns and steps, or how he looks in\nthe eyes of others. I can sense his confidence and carefree spirit. I have to admit,\ndancing with him is exhilarating.\nAt the end of the evening, when Russian Bear walks me to my car, I give\nhim my business card. I like his grey eyes and wavy blond hair, but what attracts\nme most are his eyeglasses. Men wearing glasses look intelligent to me. Also, I\nenjoyed dancing with him. I liked the envious glances that others gave us.\nRussian Bear calls the next day. We go dancing, just dancing. After that,\nhe calls again and again. His call is always brief, asking me to go dancing. Now\nthat I am intrigued, I find it is impossible to have a conversation with this guy.\nI have only learned a few simple facts about him, such as when he came to\nCanada, how many children he has with his ex-wife and how old they are, his\nprofession, and about his family in Russia. That's it. He hardly asks me any\nquestions. Eventually, I decide to go to one last dance with him. Russian Beat\npicks me up, drives me to the studio, and pays the admission fee.\nOn this night, Russian Bear turns out to be quite chatming. Like Dancing\nFox, he brings me drinks, follow me around like a puppy, and grins all the time.\nThe good thing about dancing is that you don't need to talk a lot. But I can't\nprismmagazine.ca 17 afford to dance with him week after week just to find out his ttue intention. I\ndon't have the time. No point in beating around the bush. I ask Russian Bear\nwhat he is looking for: a relationship, intimacy, or just a dance partner? I have\nnever been so blunt before. My face must have turned red because all of a sudden\nit feels very hot.\nRussian Bear tells me quite frankly that he is not looking for either a\nrelationship or just a dance partner. That leaves intimacy.\n\"That's great. I am not looking fot a relationship either\" I am actually\nrelieved. After all, my Internet friend, the Poet, is the man I want to build a\nrelationship with.\nThis is the first time in my life I have made such a statement. The moment I\nsay it, I feel empowered. This is the way of not getting hurt. Detachment is the secret\nweapon.\nWhat went wrong with Dancing Fox? It must be attachment. Feelings are like\ndandelions: they don't need too much to survive, to grow, to spread. All they\nneed is a little bit of dirt. Before you know it, they are everywhere: on your\nlawn, under a rock; in the ctack of a sidewalk. Dandelions are tough, persistent,\nand hard to get rid of. When you think about it, though, dandelions are quite\nharmless, just like feelings and attachment. But for some reason, everybody\nis annoyed by them. Or maybe only adults are. That is why we try hard to\nremove them, just like we try hard to remove natural human feelings, to become\ndetached. On the other hand, children love dandelions. When I was little, I\nbelieved that when I blew the fuzzy ball of a dandelion, they would carry my\ndreams to a far place.\nThe scary Iranian turned out to be rather charming. He was not a wife-\nbeater. He believed in equality between men and women. He grew up in a city\nand did not know how to ride a horse. I had thought all Itanians would know\nhow to ride a horse. Now I saw how wrong I was to make these assumptions.\nDancing Fox was actually a petroleum engineer. We were both immigrants\nand had experienced the tight control of our government, hardships, and the loss\nof our loved ones. We left our families on the other side of the Pacific Ocean to\npursue a good life in Canada. Now we were both alone, far from our family and\nour friends, like kites with their sttings cut, forever lost in the Canadian sky. The\nlong talks, the frequent meetings, and the hundreds of emails did not help with\ndetachment. When Dancing Fox told me one day that he had not been able to\nbear leaving his mother alone in his country, so he waited until she passed away\nbefore coming to Canada, I decided he was a good son. A good son has to be a\ngood man.\nEventually, spending the night with Dancing Fox seemed only natural. His\ntenderness, his endless caresses, the touch of his fingers running through my\nlong hair, and the talk, of coutse, all helped to set the entanglement. By the time\nhe told me a woman he met two years ago in South Korea while on a business\ntrip was coming to Canada to visit him, I was dumbfounded.\n\"I didn't know it would come to this,\" he said. \"We only spent a total of fout\nhours touring the city when I was there and I never really expected she would\n18 PRISM 51:1 accept my invitation to visit Canada.\" Stunned with his success and having two\nwomen at hand, Dancing Fox had to make a decision.\nHe chose her.\nOnce again, I was dumbfounded. According to him, her English was poor.\nThey didn't communicate well or often. She was shorter and rounder than I was.\nI saw her picture. I had the proof. She did not know a thing about ballroom\ndancing. She had one degree, I had two. Although she was three years younger\nthan I was, Dancing Fox insisted this was not the reason.\n\"I must do this. It is in my blood,\" he told me.\nI did not understand this until much later. When he said he must, he meant\nthat he must conquer I was the first one he conquered, and she would be the\nnext.\nBefore she showed up, Dancing Fox begged me to take him back as a friend.\nHe was in tears when he said, \"Regardless of what our future holds, I will always\nbe your friend. Whenever you need me, just call and I will be at your side.\"\n\"Even at two in the morning?\"\n\"Even at two in the morning.\"\n\"Even when you are married?\"\n\"Even when I am married.\"\n\"What will you say to your wife then?\"\n\"I will make up any excuses and come to your aid.\"\nI asked myself later many times, how an intelligent woman could be so\nstupid? Then I realized intelligence has nothing to do with wisdom.\nNot long before Christmas of that year, I had a riding accident and broke\nmy tailbone. I could not sit down ot bend over. I could neithet drive nor tie my\nshoelaces. I desperately needed help, so I took Dancing Fox back. Not once, but\nthree times. As a result, I got hurt three rimes deeper. The day before the othet\nwoman atrived, Dancing Fox helped me with grocery shopping to make sure\nI wouldn't starve. Then he said, \"I prefer that you not call me during the next\ncouple of weeks. If you do, I won't answer the phone.\"\nHad I known this would happen, I would rather have died of starvation than\naccept his help.\nSo now am I doing the same thing to Russian Bear that Dancing Fox once\ndid to me? I am cottesponding with the Poet through the internet, aren't I? But\nRussian Bear is doing everything he can to prevent me from getting attached to\nhim. For example, he never says I love you, or I miss you, or I like you. He never\neven uses the words ive, us, or our. The Poet will not get hurt, eithet, because\nwe have not even met. When and if we meet one day and fall in love, I will\ndump Russian Bear, just as Dancing Fox dumped me: with no guilt, hesitation\nor remorse.\nSo this is how Russian Bear and I statt the sort of relationship that I have\ndespised ever since learning of its existence. It is referred to as \"friends with\nbenefits\". The sex with Russian Beat is pretty good. I am sutprised by his\ngentleness, by his eagerness to please. I once read in a book that men who ate\neager to please are not trying to satisfy the woman, but to satisfy their own ego.\nI am not a deep thinker I like being pleased, so it counts.\nprismmagazine.ca\n19 Other little things count too: like the music CDs and dance DVDs that\nRussian Bear makes for me, the computer upgrades he does for me, the new hard\ndrive and monitor he buys for me, and the fact that he doesn't wait for Christmas\nor my birthday to give me these things. I wondet if he knows the consequence\nof these random acts of kindness, a consequence that we both should fear:\ndandelions.\nWhat do you do after love-making? Some people fall asleep. That is what I\nexpect when I am with Russian Bear. To my surprise, we talk. It is with less depth\nthan the correspondence between the Poet and me, nevertheless, we talk. When\nthat happens, secrets emerge. I gradually learn that Russian Beat had an affair\nwith anothet woman for thirteen years, just two yeats shortet than his marriage.\nHe even impregnated het, twice, and she had two abortions.\n\"Why do you always tell me the truth?\" I ask.\n\"Okay, I will lie to you then,\" he says.\nThe next time I ask him the same question, he says, \"Because I know the truth\nwill always come out eventually.\"\nI feel sorry for Russian Bear's ex-wife. But I feel sorrier for him and for his\nlover who had to give up her babies, theit babies. Even though what Russian\nBeat did is against my moral standards and my upbringing, I feel closer to\nhim. Unlike Dancing Fox, he chooses to tell me the truth, his deep dark secret.\nPerhaps it is because he wants me to know the real him, so I will not hold out\nany hope for this relationship.\nIronically, when Russian Bear and his mistress finally were free, and he\nchased her halfway across the planet to Canada, she dumped him. \"She became a\ntotally different person,\" he says. \"She found a Christian man and was converted\nby him.\"\nGod is mighty, I want to say. But instead I say, \"You must have been hurt\nbadly.\"\nThis kind of talk always happens in bed. He is facing away from me this\ntime. I hesitate a little, then wrap my arms around his waist and gently press a\nkiss on his back. He stirs, and put his hands on top of mine.\n\"Ya, it was a lot of fun. You see, I didn't see it coming.\"\nA lot of fun, a typical Canadian way of downplay one's suffering and\nheartache. Of course things still go wrong. It is all because of dandelions.\nIt starts with a visit from Russian Bear's twenty-year-old daughter. I learn\nabout their plan to go dancing and manage to get his petmission to give his\ndaughtet a pair of dancing shoes. When I see Princess at the dance studio for the\nvery first time, I am surprised by her beauty. Het entire body glows with enetgy\nand youth. Her long nicely shaped legs are flawless, like the legs you see on the\ncover page of those glossy magazines. After we exchange our names, Princess\nasks, \"You have shoes for me?\"\nI am startled by her directness. Russian Bear seems taken aback too, and does\nnot know what to say. After all, she is still a child. But Russian Bear was married\nat twenty, het age. And that was when I was studying hard in university, reading\nbooks, learning English, mountain climbing, traveling whenever I could, taking\nbeautiful photographs around the country, writing poetry, and dreaming of\n20 PRISM 51:1 becoming a great writer one day, and marrying a brilliant artist. Now, in front\nof Russian Bear and his beautiful daughter, I feel like a failure. I have nothing to\nshow, not even a child.\nStop the self-pity, I tell myself, and switch my attention to the daughter\nWhen she sees the sparkling golden shoes, her eyes light up. She takes off her\nshoes, and tries on the new ones. They fit perfectly. Then, father and daughtet go\noff dancing. I try to imagine what it feels like to hold a daughter like this. God, if\nRussian Bear sees me cry, he will dump me right then and there. In today's dating\nworld, if you carry emotional baggage, you are regarded as a suicide bomber and\npeople run away, screaming.\nThe fact that Russian Bear let me give Princess a gift has encouraged me, and\nI begin to daydream. When I get home after the dance, I dig out my collection of\ndance costumes from the last thirteen years and put them one by one on bed, to\nsee which ones would look good on her. Many of the costumes have been worn\nonly once or twice at dance competitions and a few are still brand new. I pick\nout a dozen of the most beautiful costumes, lay them aside, and send an email\nto Russian Beat. Oddly, he doesn't reply. Not the next day or the day after. He\ndoesn't call or e-mail me in the entire week. When I finally call him, he sounds\na little surprised and a little cold. I am too slow to catch it. I mention the dance\ncostumes once again.\nHe says, \"That's okay, she has enough clothes.\"\nSuddenly, I get the hint. Russian Bear has smelled the danget, smelled my\nfantasy of taking his daughtet out shopping, talking with her about school,\nmusic, perhaps even her mom. I realize I have become an embarrassment,\nsomething to be coveted up and hidden away.\nThere is a Chinese saying: for each day that two people live like a couple, the\nlove will last for one hundred days. We don't say for each day two people talk,\nthe love will last for one hundred days. It seems the Chinese believe physical\nintimacy generates love, not the words. Yet if this were truly the case, there\nwould not be any divorce. I wonder when I gave up on love to settle for lust.\nWhen in my life and in this free country Aid free to love become a distant fantasy?\nMaybe I don't want to end up like my mother, my sister, and my cousin.\nNone of them had a man after their husbands passed away. My cousin was only\nin her late thirties when her husband was killed by a train. When I asked her why\nshe had remained single all those years, she said, \"I didn't want to be an old man's\nnurse.\"\nThat means only old men wanted het. At least Russian Beat is not an old\nman.\nRussian Bear is reading a book called Ethical Slut. According to the two\nfemale authors, as long as nobody gets hurt, one can be an Ethical Slut. He tries\nto get me to read it but I refuse, though I know that the moment I took him as\na lover, I became one of them. I am deeply ashamed.\nTwo weeks latet, Princess leaves, and Russian Bear calls to apologize. \"She is\nvery jealous and wants Daddy all for herself.\"\nIf this was true, why hasn't Russian Bear's other affair put the slightest dent\non his relationship with his daughter? How could he be so lucky? However,\nprismmagazine.ca 21 his apology is more important then his explanation. Compared to my other\nwounds, this is a small cut. After it is bandaged up, I take him back.\nIt is Saturday again. When we come back from dancing, we make passionate\nlove. And for the very first time, he says, \"I missed you.\"\nAftef a brief hesitation, I admit, \"I missed you too.\" Then, I start to cty.\n\"Don't cry, baby.\" Russian Bear puts his powerful arms around my soft,\nnaked body and kisses each fresh tear away. Outside my window as we fall asleep,\nit begins to rain.\nIn the morning, the sun shines again. I step out of my front door, and there\nthey are, on my lawn: a few bright yellow dandelions with wet faces, blooming\nstubbornly toward the sky.\n22 PRISM 51:1 Elizabeth Hoover\nPHOTOGRAPHING THE TANAGER BAR\nInsofar as I am trying to solve a problem, the problem consists of iron, lace and\ngreen.\nAs the problem consists of lace, the lace is suggested by the service entrance\nmaking lattice on a man's shirt as he leans over the bar.\nAs the problem consists of iron, the iron is in absentia.\nInsofar as the iron is in absentia, one could consider it present, but only in the\nsense that a lacemaker's hands are present in the window of an antique\nshop after dusk as a wedding dress turns the colour of wheat.\nAs the problem consists of green, the green can be said to be unknowable\u2014\nthin as a beachside watercolour\u2014as it seeps in with the light patches\nquilting up the lattice on the white shirt that is turning the colouf of iron.\nAs the man's shirt turns the colour of iron these variables are apt to change as\nthey are of this particular light and therefore fleeting\u2014apt to dissolve as\nthe light dissolves when dusk slips from the window of an antique shop\nwith its meticulous fingers.\nAs the man is a variable and therefore fleeting, he makes a triangle with his\nshoulders and the copper taps, thus referring to millennia of monumental\ncompositions from the inverted angle of bronze Herekles pulling his bow\nor the wedge of lemon sun in Bruegel's Icarus.\nAs the man stopping in for a bourbon is both fleeting and monumental, he\nposes an additional problem.\nInsofar as he poses an additional problem, the solution is not to be found with\niron, lace or green, but with the long feather he set on the stool next to\nhim, striped: brown and white.\nprismmagazine.ca 23 INQUIRY: COLOUR\nQ:\nAre you colour?\nAre you cast?\nAre you cast, blush, colourant, colouration, complexion, dye or hue?\nA:\nAre you glow?\nQ:\nAre you intensity?\nIntensity of paint ot of pigmentation, of shade or of show, of show front\nor guise, mask or plea, semblance or snow?\nAre you crimson? Crimson or blonde, canary or periwinkle, scarlet or\ncopper? Or the copper light off the ice block as the ice man saws a\nchunk free?\nAre you the promise of sugar if I hurried home, the ice held away from my\nbody to keep it from melting? Are you the brown paper unwrapping\nfrom the sugar before it dusts the ice?\nA:\nOr luminosity?\nQ:\nDo you lumen?\nDo you lumen or daub, embellish or emblazon, enamel or enliven, flush\nor fresco?\nA:\nOr lay bare?\n0?\nDo you lay bare\nDo you lay bare this blue?\nThis blue and this red?\nDo you lay bare this man?\nDo you lay bare this man remembering the light on the ice and is\nremembering a kind of love, a kind that stutters like a stuck shuttei?\nDo you lay bare this yellow and this green?\nAnd if you lay bare this lavender, this lilac, this linen, this magenta, and if\nyou lay bate\u2014\n24\nPRISM 51:1 A: And if you, before colour\nsaw a woman walking,\nold pelts clinging to her shoulder,\njoined jaw to tail, frail,\nface like the face of an iceberg,\nand if you saw her in a dark crowd,\nand the sun was bright\nyou'd know to bum in the sky.\nprismmagazine.ca 25 Kirby Wright\nHOUDINI (based on a true story)\nCHARACTERS:\nDADDY, a part Hawaiian man (hapa haole) in a V-neck undershirt, khaki\nshorts, and leather slippers. He has thin lips and a ruddy complexion. He wears\nhorn-rimmed glasses like battle gear and has trouble smiling.\nMUMMY, a green-eyed blond, wears a muumuu, clip-on earrings, and bright\nred lipstick.\nBARRY, a tall, lanky thirteen-year-old with MUMMY s green eyes and blond\nhair. He wears jeans and a t-shirt.\nKIRBY, a short, husky eleven-year-old ivith DADDY'j' dark complexion. He\nwears swim trunks with a Hawaiian print and a tank top.\nADULT KIRBY, a husky man in his forties ivith sad eyes. He wears a leisure\nsuit and moves slowly. The cadence of his voice is slow and reflective.\nDOCTOR, a thin man in a white coat wearing a stethoscope.\nSETTING:\nA tract house in Honolulu.\nSET DESIGN:\nWhat's required is a living room and a backyard separated by a glass partition.\nFor the glass partition, a simple cardboard frame would be fine. The living room\nneeds a couch, a TV, an end table, and a lamp. A patch of Astroturfiis all that's\nrequired for the lawn. The other items needed are tapes of the theme songs for\nA Summer Place and Mission Impossible, a hi-fi, a sheet, a game of checkers,\nand a steel flashlight.\nSCENE:\nBARRY and KIRBY sit in the backyard lawn playing a game of checkers.\nCoils of nylon cord are stacked beside the checkerboard. KIRBY_\/\u00ab\u00bbZjM three of\nBARRY's pieces.\n26 PRISM 51:1 KIRBY: Yahoo! King me, Barry.\nBARRY: King yourself.\nKIRBY kings his own piece.\nKIRBY: {teasing\/singsong) I'm gonna beat you.\nBARRY: You sound like a homo on Hotel Street.\nKIRBY: Do not.\nBARRY: Do too. You're a prize homo.\nKIRBY: {lowers voice) I'm gonna beat you.\nBARRY: Now you sound like you-know-who.\nADULT KIRBY walks through the living room and out to the backyard.\nBARRY and KIRBY are unaware of his presence. ADULT KIRBY has the\nfreedom to roam the stage as he observes the action. BARRY and KIRBY play\nin silence.\nADULT KIRBY: It was 1967. Out house in Honolulu was one of a thousand\ntract homes built on leasehold land east of Diamond Head. Our front\ndoor faced the rising sun and the master bedroom had a great view of the\nvolcano. We lived in a shingled Mecca for a haole and Asian middle class,\nwith lots of vets and their families. My hapa haole father was one of those\nvets. As a young lieutenant in Army Intelligence, he'd witnessed the brutal\ncampaigns on Tarawa Atoll and Guadalcanal. He'd nearly died on Kwajalein\nafter being stabbed by a Japanese soldier. During the war, my father had\nlosr his University of Hawaii sweetheart to an Air Force fly boy on R & R\nin Honolulu. After the war, he took advantage of the GI Bill and attended\ngraduate school on the mainland. He'd returned to Honolulu armed with\na law degree from Harvard and an Irish wife from Boston. His only regret\nwas that his grandmother, a woman who'd danced on the court of Queen\nEmma and King Kamehameha the Fourth, had died during his final exams.\nBARRY flips the board and the checkers go flying.\nKIRBY: Hey!\nBARRY: What a kukae game.\nKIRBY: Poor loser.\nprismmagazine.ca 27 BARRY: Fatso.\nKIRBY: Where am I fat? Show me where I'm fat.\nBARRY: You're fat, Kirby.\nKIRBY: Oh, yeah?\nBARRY: Yeah. You're fat all over, including the brain. Now tie me.\nBARRY turns over on his belly. He places his hands behind his back and presses\none side of his face to the grass. KIRBY kneels down beside him and begins\nwinding nylon cord aroundBARRY j- wrists.\nADULT KIRBY: Ninth grade marked the end of my big brothel's interest in\nboard games. Every day after school, Barry asked me to tie him up so he\ncould practice his Houdini act. He'd been inspired by a Tony Curtis movie\nand wanted to become Honolulu's first escape artist. Barry loved it when I\ntied him up with nylon cord out in the backyard.\nBARRY: Tighter.\nKIRBY: This might cut your circulation.\nBARRY:Will not.\nKIRBY ties a knot and tries squeezing a finger between the cord and BARRY s\nwrists.\nKIRBY: It's like a tourniquet.\nBARRY: Can't you tie anything besides a square knot?\nKIRBY: How 'bout a fisherman's knot?\nBARRY: Only if you make it tight.\nKIRBY finishes with BARRY s wrists and starts binding his ankles. When he\nfinishes, KIRBY stands and watches BARRY twist and squirm on the grass\ntrying to get free.\nKIRBY: This time I've got you.\nBARRY: Time will tell.\nKIRBY: Time will tell you're no Houdini.\nBARRY: Shut your momona mouth.\nKIRBY: I'm not fat. I'm not fat. I'm not fat.\n28 PRISM 51:1 BARRY: Are you kidding? You're a pig ready for the imu.\nADULT KIRBY: Barry would twist and squirm on the grass for hours trying to\nget free. He always refused my offer to untie him. I studied The Boy Scout's\nHandbook and got so good at knots that it was typical for Barry to rub his\nskin raw. But somehow, he always managed to get free.\nBARRY reaches back and loosens the cord binding his wrists.\nADULT KIRBY: He was tall and lanky and I figured this helped him escape.\nEven if it took houts he'd get loose. He was more interested in escaping\nknots than doing homework.\nBARRY sits up and undoes the knot binding his ankles. He stands up and tosses\nKIRBY the cord.\nBARRY: Better luck next time, sucker.\nDADDY and MUMMY enter the living room drinking highballs. DADDY\nturns on the hi-fi and plays the theme song for \"A Summer Place. \" DADDY\nand MUMMY dance while holding their drinks. They dance around the glass\npartition out to the edge of the lawn. A Summer Place' ends aBa'DADDY and\nMUMMY stop dancing.\nDADDY: What's going on out here?\nKIRBY: The Great Escape.\nDADDY: Have you boys finished your homework?\nBARRY: Did mine on the bus.\nKIRBY: I still have some Geography.\nDADDY Well, get at it, Kirby. You'll never get into a good college if you don't\nstudy.\nMUMMY: {to DADDY) Barry's like Houdini, dear.\nDADDY gulps his highball and starts chewing on ice.\nDADDY: Oh, he is, is he?\nKIRBY: Better than Houdini.\nDADDY: Think you can get away from me, Barry?\nprismmagazine.ca 29 BARRY: {tiuirling end of cord) Sure.\nDADDY: I've had plenny of practice tying people up.\nMUMMY: Practice makes perfect!\nMUMMY starts tap-dancing.\nBARRY: Do the big kick, Mummy!\nMUMMY kicks one foot over her head, revealing her slip and panties.\nMUMMY: Is that high enough?\nBARRY: {applauding) Mummy's ready for Broadway!\nBARRYi encouragement makes MUMMY tap-dance faster. DADDY hands\nMUMMY his empty highball glass and she stops dancing.\nKIRBY: Who'd you tie up, Daddy?\nDADDY: The Japs, duting the war.\nBARRY: I'm no Jap.\nKIRBY: Yeah, and the war's long over.\nDADDY: Gimme the rope.\nBARRY: {hands over cord) Bet I can get away.\nDADDY: Get on your guts.\nBARRY drops to his hands and knees and flips over on his belly. MUMMY\nand KIRBY ivatch DADDY roll up BARRY s jeans and loops cord around his\nankles. DADDY uses a second piece to bind BARRY s wrists. He uses a slipknot\nto tie BARRY s hands and feet together behind his back.\nDADDY: This is how we handled prisoners-of-war.\nKIRBY: Did any get away?\nDADDY: Not a one.\nBARRY: There's always a first time.\nMUMMY: That looks uncomfortable.\nDADDY: He asked for it.\n30 PRISM 51:1 MUMMY: Does it hurt, Barry?\nBARRY: It kinda tickles.\nKIRBY: I'll bet.\nDADDY finishes tying BARRY and gets up. He stands over BARRY the way\na hunter stands over his kill.\nDADDY: I'll be watching Mission Impossible. I'll untie you aftef the show.\nBARRY: Be free by then.\nDADDY: We'll see.\nDADDY leaves the backyard and enters the living room. He switches on the\nlamp and the TV and hunkers down on the couch.\nMUMMY: Good luck, Batry.\nKIRBY: Boy, he'll need it.\nMUMMY leaves the backyard and sits next to DADDY on the couch. She\nplaces the highball glasses on the end table and starts massaging his neck. KIRBY\nkneels down and watches BARRY struggle on the grass. BARRY arches his back\nand slumps back down. He arches again and rolls onto his side.\nKIRBY: You're rolling around like Ripper Collins on 50th State Wrestling.\nBARRY: Shut up.\nKIRBY: What's wrong with talking?\nBARRY: I'm trying to concentrate.\nKIRBY: You're Daddy's prisoner-of-war.\nBARRY: If you don't shut up.\nADULT KIRBY: Through the glass door, I could see my father on the couch\nwatching television with my mother. I knew Barry desperately wanted his\npiaise for something, anything. He'd been cut from junior varsity football\nand was getting Ds in most of his subjects. The cord was something tangible\nBarry could defeat. Every time I'd tied him up after school was practice for\nthis very night.\nKIRBY: Think you can do it?\nprismmagazine.ca 31 BARRY: Don't know.\nKIRBY: Should I loosen that stupid slipknot?\nBARRY: That'd be cheating.\nKIRBY: Daddy won't know.\nBARRY: Yeah, but I will.\nMUMMY^pS off the couch and returns to the lawn.\nMUMMY: How's it going?\nKIRBY: Pray for Barry, Mummy.\nMUMMY looks skyward. She holds out her hands to the sky.\nMUMMY: Our Father, who art in Heaven.\nKIRBY: Go, Barry, go. God's on your side.\nMUMMY pantomimes her prayer.\nADULT KIRBY: My mother was an optimist and a staunch Roman Catholic.\nShe believed her perfect attendance at Star of the Sea Church, combined\nwith her weekly tithing, guaranteed her a place in Heaven. She liked\nconsulting Hawaiian psychics known as \"kahunas\" at the International\nMarket Place. The kahunas all told her rhat fate would step in soon and\nhelp her land a role on Broadway. That was her dream. She finished her\n\"Our Father\" and we started cheering for Barry. We cheered so hard that it\nfelt like Monday Night Football.\nKIRBY and MUMMY pantomi me their excitement as they cheer for BARRY.\nDADDY gets off the couch and watches through the glass partition.\nADULT KIRBY: Aftef fifteen minutes of frantic contortions, Batry loosened\nthe cord binding his wrists. Then he reached for the slipknot. He arched his\nlong back and, in a matter of seconds, he was free.\nBARRY stands. KIRBY and MUMMY pantomime their jubilation as they\ndance around BARRY. BARRY raises his arms in victory. DADDY returns\nto the couch.\n32 PRISM 51:1 ADULT KIRBY: I have never seen my big brother more pleased with himself\nthan that night he escaped before Mission Impossible ended.\nBARRY, accompanied by MUMMY and KIRBY, marches into the living\nroom and presents DADDY with the cord.\nDADDY: {laughing) Cheesus, you should be on this show.\nADULT KIRBY: It seemed like my father was happy. But there was a tone of\ndefeat in his voice and his praise sounded phony.\nKIRBY jumps up and down while MUMMY tap-dances.\nBARRY: Do the big kick, Mummy! Do the big kick!\nMUMMY does the big kick.\nMUMMY: Is that high enough?\nBARRY applauds, encouraging MUMMY to dance faster.\nThe Mission Impossible' theme song plays. BARRY intertwines the fingers of his\nhands as if praying, then sticks out index fingers and thumbs to make a gun. He\naims his gun at MUMMY and then at KIRBY. MUMMY and KIRBY make\nguns too. Tkie three ofithem circle the room, pantomiming a trio of spies aiming\nguns at one another.\nKIRBY: {aiming at BARRY) Barry did it!\nBARRY: Thank-you, thank-you.\nMUMMY: {aiming at BARRY) Take a bow, Batry!\nBARRY bows.\nKIRBY: {aiming at DADDY) Yahoo!\nDADDY: All right, that's enough.\nprismmagazine.ca 33 The themesongfor 'Mission Impossible ends. MUMMY, KIRBY, andBARRY\nquit their pantomime.\nMUMMY: Don't you think your son's pretty terrific?\nDADDY: Keep your big voice down, Mary. All the neighbors'U hear you.\nMUMMY: But Barry's the best!\nKIRBY: Better than Houdini.\nBARRY: {nodding) I can escape anything.\nDADDY pops off the couch.\nDADDY: Look, you lil' sonuvabitch, want me to really show you how we tied\nup the Japs?\nBARRY: Sure.\nDADDY: Then let's go outside, big mouth.\nBARRY: Lead the way.\nMUMMY: This is getting silly.\nKIRBY: Yeah, that'd be cheating! Barry already got away.\nDADDY: Shut your yaps.\nMUMMY and KIRBY follow DADDY and BARRY back to the lawn.\nBARRY gets on his belly and DADDY jams his knee between BARRYJ\nshoulder blades and loops cord around his wrists. DADDY threads the cord\nbetween BARRY's wrists and secures it with a knot.\nDADDY: I'll fix your wagon.\nBARRY: Owie!\nKIRBY: That's too tight!\nDADDY: {to BARRY) You made your bed, big mouth, now sleep in it.\nDADDY finishes tying BARRY's wrists together and starts in on his ankles.\nMUMMY: Isn't that enough for one night?\nDADDY: He won't escape now.\n34 PRISM 51:1 MUMMY: Is this really necessary, dear?\nDADDY: Goddamn it, Mary, remember what that psychologist said?\nMUMMY: No. What did he say?\nDADDY: To stay the hell away when I'm disciplining them.\nMUMMY looks at KIRBY and shakes her head. She leaves the lawn and\nreturns to the living room. She watches through the glass partition.\nDADDY: (to BARRY) Bend at the knees.\nDADDY connects BARRY s roped ankles and wrists with a third piece of cord.\nWhen he pulls the nylon tight, BARRY screams.\nDADDY: Now this is the real McCoy.\nBARRY: God.\nDADDY musses up BARRY s blond hair.\nDADDY: Have fun, big mouth.\nDADDY returns to the living room with MUMMY, where they pantomime\nan argument. KIRBY sits beside BARRY and pantomimes his instructions.\nADULT KIRBY: I sat beside Barry and tried coaching him to freedom. His\nhands and feet touched behind his back. I told him the position of a timbet\nhitch knot connecting his wrists to his ankles\u2014it was the kind of knot\nlumberjacks use. I told him that there was a surgeon's knot between his\nwtists that got smaller and smaller every time he reached for it.\nKIRBY: Tell me when to free you.\nBARRY: Sure.\nKIRBY: Want some juice?\nBARRY: No.\nDADDY rfWMUMMY exit the living room and disappear. The stage darkens.\nHie only light comes from the lamp in the living room.\nprismmagazine.ca 35 ADULT KIRBY: My father got my mother to go to bed early that night. When\nmy father threatened to turn the lights off, I...\nKIRBY runs from the lawn to the living room and pulls a flashlight out of the\ndrawer in the end table. He turns the flashlight on and returns to the lawn.\nADULT KIRBY: .. .got a flashlight and returned to the lawn.\nKIRBY shines the flashlight at BARRY. BARRY squirms and arches his back\ntrying to get free.\nADULT KIRBY: Barry looked like a pretzel with his knees bent and his arms\nstretched behind him. He arched his back trying to reach the timber hitch.\nThe more he struggled, the tighter the cord got.\nKIRBY shines the light on BARRY sfitce.\nADULT KIRBY: I shined the light on his face\u2014one side rested on the grass and\nthe other was covered with blue fertilizer pebbles.\nKIRBY: He's got you.\nBARRY: I know.\nKIRBY: Let me untie you.\nBARRY: Okay, but don't tell Daddy.\nKIRBY: I won't.\nKIRBY places the flashlight on the lawn and faces the light toward BARRY.\nThe beam lights his face and shoulders. DADDY, wearing pajamas, enters the\nroom. He studies the lawn through the glass partition. He ivalks around\nPartition and stands at the edge of the lawn. KIRBY aims the flashlight and\nlights up DADDY in his Pfs.\nDADDY: {shielding eyes) You're next, Kirby! Is that what you want?\nKIRBY: No.\nDADDY: Then get to bed.\nKIRBY: This isn't World War Two!\n36 PRISM 51:1 DADDY: You've got ten seconds. One, two...\nBARRY: It's okay, Kirby. I'm almost free.\nKIRBY: Really?\nDADDY: Three, four.\nBARRY: Really. Go to sleep.\nKIRBY: I'll be right in the living room.\nDADDY: Five. Six.\nKIRBY using the flashlight to guide him, follows DADDY back inside.\nDADDY turns off the lamp in the living room. The stage is in darkness, except\nfor KIRBY\"s flashlight. KIRBY enters the living room and strips down to his\nunderpants. He flops on the couch and turns the flashlight off. The stage is pitch\nblack.\nADULT KIRBY: I listened for Barry. I waited for him to walk into the living\nroom and show me the cord. I waited and waited. I fell asleep waiting.\nA sheet in the living room is held up\u2014the flashlight turns it into a screen.\nThe silhouettes of DADDY, MUMMY, and a DOCTOR pantomime the\nfollowing dream sequence:\nADULT KIRBY: I dreamt Barry had to go to the hospital to have his hands\nand feet removed. My father told the doctor that the opetation was way\ntoo expensive and that he could perform the surgery at home if my mother\nacted as his nurse. My mother pulled a dinner napkin out of her purse,\nfolded it into a nurse's cap, and stuck the cap on her head.\nThe flashlight goes off and the living room returns to darkness. The stage lightens\nand there's the sound of garbage trucks. KIRBY wakes up on the couch. BARRY\nis still out on the lawn.\nADULT KIRBY: The garbage trucks woke me up.\nKIRBY leaps off the couch and runs out to the lawn. He kneels beside BARRY.\nADULT KIRBY: I ran outside in my underpants and found Batry on his side\nwith his eyes closed. His hands and feet were still touching. The cord around\nhis wrists was red with blood.\nprismmagazine.ca 37 KIRBY tugs at the cord.\nKIRBY: Jesus!\nDADDY, wearing a dark suit and tie, walks out to the edge of the lawn ho,\na steak knife.\nDADDY: How's the big mouth this morning?\nKIRBY: Barry's bleeding!\nDADDY: He asked for it.\nKIRBY yanks at the timber hitch knot and BARRY cries. DADDY han\nKIRBY the knife.\nDADDY: Cut Houdini free and get ready for school.\nDADDY returns to the house and disappears.\nADULT KIRBY: I sawed at the timber hitch knot and the nylon gave way, one\nstrand at a time.\nKIRBY straightens out BARRY s legs and starts in on his wrists.\nADULT KIRBY: I straightened out his legs and cut the bloody surgeon's knot\nbinding his wrists. Barry remained on his side. The skin around his wrists\nlooked like raw meat.\nKIRBY cuts the last strand of cord.\nKIRBY: It's over.\nBARRY keeps his arms behind him and one ear to the ground. KIRBY rubs\nBARRY s back. BARRY flinches.\n38 PRISM 51:1 KIRBY: Barry? What's wrong, Barry? Come on. You can tell me.\nADULT KIRBY: He didn't answer. Barry's arms were still behind him, as if\nthe surgeon's knot hadn't been cut. His eyes wateted and he kept an ear to\nthe ground. Blue fertilizer pebbles were embedded in his blond hair and\neyebrows. I was surprised my mother hadn't come out to comfort him.\nWhen Barry had gashed open his foot on a sprinkler head she pressed a\ntowel against the wound to slow down the bleeding, and she gave me a\ntummy rub whenever I felt like barfing. But this was different. This time\nmy fathet was involved.\nDADDY WMUMMY enter the living room. They stand side-by-side at the\nglass partition and study their sons.\nADULT KIRBY: The dream came back to me. I remembered my parents hadn't\nthought twice about maiming their son. I stood up and...\nKIRBY stands.\nADULT KIRBY: ...something moved in the living room. I looked over at the\nglass doot and there they stood, watching. There was something in my\nfather's face that said the battle had just begun.\nDADDY drops an arm over MUMMY s shoulder and she leans into him. A\nSummer Place'plays. Fade to Black.\n[END]\nprismmagazine.ca 39 Matt McLean\nout here\nthe heater fever, the wooden chairs,\nthrough the broken window: pine trees\nand more pine trees.\nthe piano, what's left of you.\nthe legs chewed by dogs.\nout here, the devil quill\nof winter trees, the gentle hills,\nthe wandering, the dream i had,\nthere was my father, and a pond knife.\nthe axe comes down as i lend shape to air.\ni give it unwilling,\nmy speech viscous like spitting\nwords off a road sign.\nthe winter takes.\ni'm sorry for madness, it's not my fault.\nthere is weather then there is me. you have the love\nand misunderstanding of a small town church.\ni have nothing.\ni am the shed\nthat's been taken down.\n40 PRISM 51:1 GOOD MORNING\nThe ocean might have froze over,\ndidn't notice, didn't care.\nI found a hole in Montreal\nI really think you'd like. We could\ngo there in the new wintet, I want\nto have the daughters\nfrom Gainsborough's painting\nwith you. I saw\nmy fathet unfold\nover the bloody horizon\nagain, just now.\nI put on the coffee,\nthough you're cities away.\nThe cars through the window.\nPeople heading towards you.\nprismmagazine.ca 41 Dennis McFadden\nSPARROWBUSH\nW hen Patty was little, the best thing she ever did with her father\u2014better\nthan dancing on his toes, better than reading the funny pages\u2014was uppies. He\nwould toss her up and catch her, and she loved the feeling of weightlessness, of\nbeing lighter than air. Her mother's face would twist in concern\u2014\"Oh John, be\ncareful!\"\u2014but her mother didn't know; how could she? Her mother was glued\nto the ground.\nOne day walking home from the store with her mother, she spotted him\nmowing their little square lawn on South Manning Boulevard. She flew into his\narms, demanding an uppy\u2014and another and another. \"One more uppy, daddy!\"\n\"Oh honey, daddy's tired.\" She saw the sheen of sweat on his face, the blood\nvessels traversing his temples like railroad tracks.\n\"Again, daddy. Pleeease.\"\n\"Patty, sweetie, you're getting too heavy.\"\nClearly het father was mistaken. That was her first impression, and it never\nreally changed as she grew older, no matter how often she subjected it to logic.\nThe idea of being heavy was incomprehensible; boulders were heavy, cars were\nheavy. Her tummy was full of the glory of flying, yet her appetite had only been\nwhetted. \"No, daddy, I can't be heavy, I'm your little Patty Cake!\" she said,\nhopping miserably in the fresh-mown grass.\nThirteen years later she stood in the same spot, glued to the ground, watching\nthem carry her father away. His face sunken and gray, he was dying. His eye\nopened beside the oxygen mask and looked not at her mother, but at Patty. He\nwinked, she thought, though it might have been a flinch. He was only fifty-two,\nand Patty knew that it was his genes, his sedentary lifestyle, that had caused his\nheart to quit, all the hours he'd spent down on the corner at Ziggy's\u2014he would\nfeed her dimes for the juke box while he drank with his friends, cigar ashes\nfalling down the front of his white shirt, as she played songs and twirled in the\nmiddle of the room for him. Yet a comer of her mind\u2014also immune to logic\u2014\nblamed the uppies.\nTwo years later she experienced the same feeling of flying. Without evet leaving\nthe ground, the same sensation filled her stomach\u2014the light and airy feeling\nof weightlessness\u2014when Petet Boyle touched her hand during a test drive\nof the 1961 Impala he was trying to sell her. She'd thought her anxiety had\nbeen caused by the prospect of purchasing her first car\u2014using her mother's\nwas impossible now that she'd begun waitressing at the Red Coach Grill, as\nwell as attending accounting classes at St. Rose. But she realized now, when he\naccidentally touched het hand as they both reached fot the radio knob, that it\nhad been caused by the prospect of Peter Boyle. He was handsome in a studious\n42 PRISM 51:1 way, thinning sandy hair combed neatly in a no-nonsense fashion, thick glasses,\nagreeable features, but his sincerity seemed more genuine than a mere sales pitch.\nHis brown eyes, enlarged by the lenses, probed beneath the pleasantries so that\nwhen he asked her how many miles she anticipated driving in the next year, he\nwas proposing a future together.\nPatty mentioned the curious sensation to her mother Her mother was\nhaving an afternoon cup of coffee with her crossword puzzle at the kitchen table\nby the window overlooking the back yard, the spot where her father had always\nsat. The swing set, abandoned and fusty, still stood in the far corner of the yard\nby the pear tree. Her mother had taken over most of her father's spots\u2014the\nrecliner in front of the television, the side of the bed nearest the bathroom\u2014as\nthough filling in the ranks, taking her place next in line.\nShe looked up from the puzzle on the table to the one on Patty's face. \"The\nwings of love,\" she said with a sigh.\nWhen Peter Boyle carried her across the threshold, Patty was weightless again.\nTheif first apartment was in a duplex on Sparrowbush Lane, further from\nSt. Rose, but closer to the Red Coach, and not far from Eludson Motors on\nCentral Avenue where Petef worked. Patty had found it. \"It's like a little doll's\nhouse,\" she'd told him excitedly. Peter was working mornings and evenings with\nafternoons off, and her Red Coach shift didn't start until five. Sometimes when\nshe came in from morning classes she would catch him napping, and jump up\nand down on the bed beside him to wake him up, bouncing like a little girl,\ngiggles and all.\nOnce when he tried to grab her, she lost hef balance and clocked him on the\neye with her elbow. \"Ouch! Jesus!\"\n\"Oh,\" Patty said, \"are you all right?\"\n\"Sure. I've still got one good eye.\"\n\"Poot baby.\" She kissed it to make it better. \"There, there.\"\n\"What'll I tell my customets?\"\n\"Tell them the truth. Tell them your wife beat you up.\"\nThis led to tickling, which led to rough-housing. She liked the hint of\nsavagery in their sex, especially in broad daylight, her favorite time. The only\nother boys she'd made love with had been timid, handling her in the dark as\nthough she might break. In the summers she and Peter let the breeze from the\nfan at the foot of the bed wash over their naked bodies.\nOne afternoon laying limp and damp and cooling, Peter lifted his arms towafd\nthe ceiling, turning them lazily. \"Do you think I should start working out?\"\n\"Afraid I'll beat you up again?\" Patty said. \"Can't handle me anymore?\"\n\"You are putting on a few pounds.\"\n\"I am?\" Clearly, her husband was mistaken.\n\"If you're not careful, you're going to end up looking like your mother.\"\nWithout his glasses, his eyes looked sharper, more dangerous.\n\"What's the matter with the way my mother looks?\"\n\"Nothing, if you don't mind plump.\"\nprismmagazine.ca 43 \"Do you mind plump?\"\n\"I didn't marry plump,\" Peter said.\nIt seemed a logical response to Patty, and if the implied threat registered at\nall, she paid it little heed, like a tornado warning in Texas. She was not, after all,\nplump.\nShe was part Irish, though exactly which part nobody knew. Or cared. Her\nmaiden name was Larson, and the only time Irishness had ever arisen had been\nSt. Patrick's Day, when her father would take her downtown to see the Albany\npatade. She remembered sitting shivering on his shoulders, watching the bands\nand the bagpipes and the fat men marching. But mostly she remembered her\nfather in a silly hat drinking green beer down at Ziggy's.\nPeter's grandparents had come from Ireland but had died before Patty had\nmet them; he'd never seemed particularly interested in his Irish heritage. So it\ncame as a surprise in 1971, after they'd been married four years, when Peter\nproposed opening an Irish pub with one of his older brothers, Frank.\n\"An Irish pub?\" she said. They were eating pizza at their kitchen table on\nSparrowbush, listening to the young couple next door, in the othei half of the\nduplex, making love. Loudly. The Rizzos had moved in at the beginning of the\nyear, nearly three months before, and Patty and Peter were growing accustomed\nto the noises by now.\n\"I'm sick of selling cars,\" he said. Patty doubted that. What he was sick of\nwas the aftermath, when the transmission went, or the radiator sprang a leak.\nPetef needed to be adored.\n\"Why Irish?\"\n\"You need something to make ir stand out.\" Peter tapped his beer bottle to\nhis chest. \"We're Irish. Do you have any idea how many Irish there are around\nhere? Thousands.\"\n\"Oh really?\"\n''O'Reilly\" Peter said with a self-congratulatory grin.\n\"Oh brother,\" Patty said. They listened as the staccato hammering\u2014the\nheadboard against the wall?\u2014was joined by female moans, in the same rhythm,\ngrowing louder with each bang. \"There she goes again.\"\n\"Sounds like they're using industtial implements,\" Peter said.\n\"Are you going to eat that crust?\"\nPeter dangled the crust, teasing, making her grab for it. They listened to\nthe moaning intensify. \"What the heck is that?\" Patty asked. A second banging\nnoise, an echo, had joined the hammering-moaning. Standing, Peter wiped his\nhands on a napkin, reaching across the table to grasp Patty's breasts, one per\nhand. \"If you can't lick 'em, join em.\"\n\"Oh, you can lick em,\" Patty said.\nThe Rizzos had inspired them before, though usually more subtly. But\nspontaneity was in the air, a sense of adventure, an Irish pub, life itself to be\ngrabbed by the balls. Patty couldn't take the time to fetch her diaphragm. On\ntop of a crushed pizza box, they banged the kitchen table against their neighbor's\nwall, banged it long and loud. When their son was born nine months latef, she\n44 PRISM 51:1 toyed with the idea of naming him Domino, but nevef suggested it. Peter had\nhis heart set on Peter, Jr.\nPeter, Jr. was born about the same time as the pub. The place had last been a\nsports bar, and the location on Fuller Road was a curse, bars and restaurants\nhaving sprouted there and withered by the score. Peter and Frank were banking\non the Irish angle. They painted it green, stocked the kitchen with corned beef,\nthe bar with Guinness Stout, the jukebox with Clancy Brothers, and opened the\ndoors. They called it The Shamrock Inn.\nBusiness was good on day one, and grew. It helped that the Troubles in\nIreland had broken out anew, and were often in the news. Peter and Frank had\ndone their homework; there were thousands of Irish and Irish Americans living\nnear the capital of New York State. Where better to celebrate their Irishness than\nat a place called The Shamrock Inn?\nPatty found it difficult to lose the weight she'd gained during her pregnancy.\nNo longer could she dance on Peter's toes. She'd retired from waitressing to stay\nhome with the baby.\nAmong the first customers were an older couple from Belfast, Molly and\nSeamus Rossiter, with whom Peter established an immediate fapport. He listened\nfor hours to their tales of English murder and mayhem in their homeland. The\nRossiters were charter members of the Friends of Irish Liberty\u2014FOIL\u2014a group\nthat raised money for the families of jailed IRA men, although many claimed\nthe money actually went to more nefarious IRA purposes. Peter was enthusiastic\nabout his new sense of Irishness, sharing it liberally with Patty and Frank and\nanyone else who would listen.\nThey bought a house on Sand Creek Road, a plain ranch. Peter spent more\nand more time at the pub. Theit sex life grew perfunctory, and they seldom\nwrestled anymore, never with Sparrowbush gusto. When their second son\nwas born two years after Peter, Jr., Petef named him Sean. His daughter was\nchristened Siobhan two years later. By then, Peter had joined FOIL, and the\nWolfe Tones were bumping the Clancies from the jukebox.\nBy then, Patty was thirty pounds overweight and holding.\nShe mentioned it to her mother one afternoon over coffee. Siobhan was asleep\nin her car seat by the kitchen table while they watched Pete and Sean playing on\nthe rusty old swing set. \"Does it bother you, mom?\"\n\"Me?\" Her mother looked surprised. \"I'll love you no matter how fat you\nare.\"\n\"Not me. Does it bother you being overweight?\"\n\"I'm overweight?\" Her mothef smiled.\n\"A little.\"\n\"I never give it a thought. I'm just me.\"\n\"Peter never gains an ounce. He works out.\"\n\"Yout fathet was always heavier than me\u2014maybe that made a difference, I\ndon't know. I guess it's not important unless you're the kind of person who wants\nto save the world.\"\nprismmagazine.ca 45 \"Not the whole world. Just Ireland.\"\n\"Ireland, the whales, whatever. Have a cookie.\"\nPatty was always hungry. She'd never finished her degree at St. Rose, had never\nworked, except waitressing, feeling that raising a family would be work and\nreward enough. She spent many hours after the kids were in bed, but before\nPetef came home, trying not to snack; often she turned to masturbation as a\ncomfort nearly as satisfying, but with far fewer calories. Often she pondered the\nancient conundtum: Which came first, the hunger or the weight? Sometimes she\npondered Peter's words, words that had been gone for years, but which suddenly\nreturned unbidden one night as she reached for a handful of peanuts: I didn't\nmarry plump.\nPatty joined the Healthy Weigh Program for the same reason she'd begun taking\nthe kids to church again: to see if the rituals, the repetition, the routine, the\ndevotion of the other worshippers might really convince her of something she\nwas inclined to doubt.\nThe meetings were held in an empty storefront in a little strip mall on Hoosick\nStreet in Troy. Here she met Sheila Egan. Patty wondered why Sheila was there:\nSheila was slim and pretty. So slim and pretty in fact that Patty detected traces of\nhostility in the glances from the seven heavy ladies in the group, as they watched\nSheila sitting in the front taking copious notes on the lecture about cholesterol,\ntriglycerides and lipoproteins. Patty, however, harboured no hostility; she sensed\na comrade. Patty wondered why she herself was there.\nAfter the meeting, Patty visited the ladies' room in the disco lounge next\ndoor. In the mirror, she assessed the results of the weigh-in. She looked much\nas her mother always had, as long as Patty could remember: dark and clean,\nstill sexy, a bit heavy. True, Patty missed being light; in the mirror she saw the\nweightless person floating to the surface, quite visible to her there beneath the\nsurface of her pale blue eyes, like someone trapped beneath the ice. Lightness\nwas like flying, like life; heaviness was mortal, gravity sucking you into the grave.\nBut wasn't hunger like life as well?\nSheila Egan came in. They exchanged nods and perfunctory smiles, then\nwent about the business of ignoring each other, fiddling with earrings in the\nmifrof.\nPatty heard Sheila sigh; what could this woman possibly have to sigh about\nin a mitror? She watched her fumble an earring, drop it into the sink, retrieve it\nnervously\".\n\"God help me, I'm so hungry\" Sheila murmured.\nThe six words were Patty's mantra.\n\"It's all this talk about food,\" Patty said, smiling towatd Sheila in the mirror.\n\"I had an uncle once who swore his AA meetings made him thitsty.\"\n\"I think about food, I gain weight,\" said Sheila, patting het tummy.\n\"Oh God, that's obvious. I bet you need suspenders to hold up yout girdle.\"\n\"What's a 'gitdle'?\"\nThey laughed together Patty liked this woman. It was the mantta. It was her\n46 PRISM 51:1 eyes: gorgeous and black to be sure, like her hair, but also full of flashing life. The\nflickers, somewhere between evanescent and imaginary, seemed a coded message\nto whoever could detect them, like glints from a far-off wreck. Like an SOS.\nPeter told Patty one of the Rossiters' stories: When she was twelve, Molly was\nwalking with a friend on Easter Sunday to a Belfast cemetery to honor Ireland's\ndead when a gang of Loyalist thugs tried to seize the paper Easter Lily she wore,\nthe symbol of Irish resistance to Britain. Rather than surrender her Lily, Molly\nate it.\n\"When she was twelve?\" Patty said. \"It's been going on that long?\" Outside,\nthe November sky had darkened, the year's first snow flurries scattering in the\nair.\n\"It's been going on for eight hundted years,\" Peter said. And it was getting\nworse; there was talk about Irish prisoners going on hunger strike. The Friends of\nIrish Liberty were planning demonstrations in support\u2014would she like to come\nto the next meeting?\nPatty said no. She was already away from the kids one night a week with her\nHealthy Weigh meetings, and babysitters were expensive. The fact that Frank's\noldest daughter, Jean, would watch the kids for nothing, Peter neglected to\nmention. The fact that Knots Landing was on the same night as FOIL meetings,\nPatty neglected to mention.\nPatty and Sheila began stopping for coffee after Healthy Weigh meetings. Patty\nlearned that Sheila was ten yeats younger than her, about a yeat for every pound\nSheila perceived herself to be ovetweight. She lived alone with a cat named\nBosco, worked for Citibank, and had moved to Albany from Staten Island six\nmonths ago after a messy divorce which had left her with precious little positive\nto say about the male of the species, including her current beau, a man from\nthe bank named William. Her ex-husband had liked kinky sex, she told Patty.\nPatty had feigned understanding, letting the topic slide, unwilling to show her\nignorance, dying all the while to know every detail.\nLeaving the coffee shop one evening, Patty glanced at the small television by\nthe cash register, showing a tease for the upcoming news. \"Peter!\" she exclaimed.\n\"Your husband?\" Sheila said. He wore glasses and a frown, speaking gravely\ninto a microphone as picketers paraded behind him.\n\"Yes.\" A burning building replaced her husband.\n\"Must be that FOIL thing?\"\n\"Yeah, he's the chairman. I wonder if he knew they were going to be on\ntelevision\u2014what channel is that?\"\n\"Thirteen,\" the cashier said.\n\"I have to get home in time to see it,\" Patty said. \"Peter needs his applause.\"\n\"Don't they all,\" Sheila said.\nPeter had the VCR set to record. \"Channel 13 was there.\"\n\"1 know,\" said Patty, taking off her coat.\n\"Should I get the kids up?\"\n\"Why?\"\nprismmagazine.ca 47 \"How often is their dad on TV?\"\n\"They can see it tomotrow. Want me to call my mom?\"\n\"I already did.\"\nFive minutes into the news, the picketets appeared, circling on the sidewalk\nin front of the Watervliet Arsenal. There were Molly and Seamus Rossiter, \"Shh,\"\nPeter said, though Patty hadn't uttered a word. The camera closed in on one sign,\nBrendan Hughes Must Not Die, before focusing on Peter Boyle, Chairman, Friends\nOf Irish Liberty.\nPatty cheered. \"Shhh,\" Peter said.\n\"We're trying to make Americans aware of what's really going on over there,\"\nhe told the camera. \"Seven Irishmen are dying an agonizing death on hunger\nstrike, and all they'te hungering for are the basic liberties we take for granted,\nliberties denied them by an oppressive British government.\"\nPatty applauded as the anchor reappeared. Peter took off his glasses to give\nthem a frown. \"I gotta get contacts,\" he said. \"I looked like a disco ball.\"\n\"You did great.\"\n\"I didn't know I was so bald.\"\n\"You looked great.\"\n\"I guess it wasn't too bad. But my voice kind of cracked.\"\n\"You sounded great. Of course I don't know how many people will know\nwhat you're talking about.\"\n\"This is the only way they're going to find out.\" Petef jabbed a fingef toward\nthe television. \"We have to get a lot more of this.\"\n\"Sheila was impressed.\"\n\"Oh yeah?\"\n\"I was on TV once. Me and my dad. They showed him lifting me up so I\ncould see over the ctowd at the St. Patrick's Day parade.\" She recalled the sight of\nherself in his hands, high above the others, smiling and waving, her hair pinned\nwith a pretty ribbon behind her big ears\u2014she always wore her hair over her ears\nnow\u2014frozen in her memory like a wedding picture. But she couldn't remember\nanything else, whether or not her father could be seen too. All she remembered\nwas smiling in the sky.\n\"What did Sheila say?\" said Peter.\nAfter a Healthy Weigh meeting in early December, Patty asked Sheila if she liked\nto shop.\n\"Does the Pope like to preach?\" Sheila's red, red lips surrounded her smile.\nPatty took her to Stuyvesant Plaza; they could Christmas shop, as well as\navoid the temptation of the chocolate cream pie at the coffee shop. The Plaza was\naglitter with Christmas lights, a tentative flux of snowflakes in the ait. Sheila, a\nmall girl, found the old-fashioned, shopping-centre-charm delightful, each shop\nmore enchanting than the last. She was especially eager to explore the Plaza Book\nShop, where she picked up a papetback called Ireland For Beginners. She wanted\nto find out what this hunger strike thing was all about.\nThree doors down from the book store, they stopped short. \"Oh my God,\"\nPatty said.\n48 PRISM 51:1 \"I think I might genuflect,\" Sheila said.\n\"I think I might have an orgasm,\" said Patty.\nThey stood before Mrs. London's Bake Shop. Crusty breads, tall cakes, pies,\nand lush pastries filled the window, which was sweating from the heat of it all.\nTheir faces turned slowly from the window to each other's, eyes engorged.\nPatty shook her head. Sheila nodded hers.\n\"No,\" said Patty, but Sheila took her hand. \"We can't!'\n\"Watch us.\" Sheila led her to the door.\nThe heat and aromas were intoxicating. The surrender was sweet and\ncomplete: warm cherry tarts melted in their mouths. Sheila said, \"A hunger\nstrike\u2014can you imagine for one minute not eating?\"\n\"No,\" Patty said. \"Peter wanted to fast on Thanksgiving.\"\n\"You're kidding? You mean not eat?\"\n\"I guess a lot of them didn't. They were fasting out of sympathy for the\nhunger strikers. They sent out a press release and everything.\"\n\"But you ate?\"\n\"Of coutse. I told Peter he could starve himself if he wanted to, but he wasn't\ngoing to starve my kids. Or me.\"\n\"So you and Petef don't exactly see eye to eye on this Irish stuff?\"\n\"Usually we do. It's just a matter of degree.\"\n\"That's always the matter,\" Sheila said mysteriously, dabbing at the crumbs\non her doily. A faraway look came into her eyes scanning the pastry case.\n\"Oh no,\" Patty said.\nSheila excused herself, returning a moment later with an eclair and a\nnapoleon, on separate saucers. \"Which one do you want?\"\n\"What the hell,\" said Patty.\n\"Take this\u2014I have to have this eclair.\"\nSheila could barely ease her lips around the long fat pastry. With the fiist\nbite, her eyes rolled heavenward. Patty gently sank her teeth into the napoleon.\nLips were licked, forks forgotten. \"Oh God,\" they sighed in unison.\n\"Want to taste mine?\" Sheila asked.\nThen they laughed. I didn't marry plump, thought Patty. She couldn't stop\nlaughing; neither could Sheila. Mouths filled with pleasure, custaid overflowing\ntheir lips, they laughed.\nHer father tossed her in the air, giddy and floating free, up to the puffy clouds\nand down again, the clean blue air blowing away all her troubles like chaff from\nwheat. She landed lightly in his strong hands, a weightless golden kernel.\n\"Again, daddy.\"\n\"Oh honey, daddy's tired.\"\n\"One more uppy, daddy. Pleeease.\"\nWith a mighty gtunt, he tossed her high; she peaked above the clouds and\nplummeted down, soaring toward her father, fastet, fastet, gathering speed,\ngfowing larger, hurtling towaid his frightened face.\nShe awoke with a jolt on the bed beside Peter. Holding her breath, she feared\nthe clamour of her heart would surely wake him, if the bounce at the end of\nprismmagazine.ca 49 her dream hadn't; Peter was a light sleeper. From down the hallway, she heard\nSiobhan giggle and murmur in her sleep, asking a question in unfathomable\nsyllables.\nPatty had nearly drifted off again when a car horn sounded somewhere down\nSand Creek Road. She sank again towards sleep, surprised by the dampness\ncooling her eyelids. I lost two pounds this week, she announced in her dream and\nPeter looked at her, said nothing, then looked back to the television camera.\nThey hadn't had sex in two weeks.\nGod help me, I'm so hungry. Patty's hand slid down her stomach. She\nintentionally jiggled the bed a little, hoping to wake Petef; when he \"caught\" her\nmasturbating, he was always turned on. But on he slept, and Patty came alone.\nAfterwards, drifting back towafd sleep, the hollowness inside her suddenly\nfilled with warmth, and Sheila's laughing face was there, custard on the corner\nof her mouth. Patty knew dozens of women: old school mates, family friends,\nwives in FOIL, little league moms from the long afternoons in the bleachets\nwatching het boys, feis moms from Siobhan's endless hours of Irish dancing. But\nwith none of them had she experienced the spontaneous combustion she seemed\nto share with Sheila. Was it magic, or was it something in their chemistries that\nignited when they met, bursting into a blaze of happiness? Or was it even more\ncomplex, such as the sharing of some secret, unknowable thing?\n\"How's that hunger strike thing going?\" Sheila asked one cold January evening\nas they warmed themselves over coffee and one piece of hot apple pie, two forks.\nSheila was on Healthy Weigh maintenance, having reached her goal easily;\nPatty still weighed in weekly, usually in vain. The shopping excursions didn't\nhelp, often ending with a failure to resist some tasty temptation ot other, a\nbetrayal more easily accommodated by Sheila's body, apparently possessed of a\nmystical metabolism.\n\"Oh, that's all over with,\" Patty said.\n\"Oh really?\"\n\"O'Reilly. Yeah, sometime in December. Apparently there was some deal\nwith the English, and they got what they wanted.\"\n\"What did they want?\"\n\"Beats me. I haven't been keeping up with it.\"\nIn February, Patty took Sheila to a FOIL meeting at the Albany Hibernian\nHall, off Central Avenue in an area dark and depressed. They clutched their\npurses and dashed to the locked door, where they waited nervously for the buzz\nto admit them. Patty was secretly amused by the juxtaposition of her high-\nheeled, well-dressed friend, sleek and chic, standing beside a frozen puddle of\npuke. This would probably be not only het fitst FOIL meeting, but het last.\nThey were greeted by a grim tide of faces. They'd intettupted Peter's briefing\non the possibility of another hunger strike, Britain having reneged once again on\nits Irish promises.\nPatty recognized maybe half the two dozen faces, nodding to Molly Rossiter.\nThe room was cloudy with cigarette smoke, but btight fot a Hibernian barroom,\nlights up for the meeting, dart board idle. She'd seen Peter's meeting face before,\n50 PRISM 51:1 but never quite so grave. As he went on about the hunger strike, Patty glanced at\nSheila. Sheila was staring at Molly Rossiter.\nFinally, Sheila leaned close, whispering, \"That's Molly Rossiter?\" Patty\nnodded.\nWhen Sheila leaned close to whisper again moments later, several faces\nglanced over; Patty felt as if she were in kindergarten. \"She's the one you were\nworried about?\"\nPatty frowned, leaning closer. \"Worried?\"\nSheila waited a moment before leaning again. \"I got the impression you were\nworried. You know\u2014about het and Petet.\"\n\"No,\" whispered Patty with a frown.\n\"I would hope not. She's old enough to be your grandmother, for God's\nsake.\"\nThey gave in to a giggle, albeit a quiet one. Now Molly glared as well. Her\nlips were a brighter red than Sheila's, her face deeply creased, her once red hair\nnow coloured dirty orange.\nSheila waited till all faces had turned back to Peter, who'd continued with\na frown toward his wife and her friend. Then she leaned again to whisper:\n\"Shouldn't her hair be i\nThe meeting went unmentioned until Sunday. She'd seen very little of Peter,\nbetween his pub schedule and her kids schedule. She insisted they have Sunday\ndinner together, the only family meal of the week now. It was early, four o'clock,\nso Peter could get back to the pub.\n\"So what are you saying?\" Patty said. \"You don't want me to go to any more\nmeetings?\"\n\"Pete's got more peas than me,\" Sean said.\n\"I do not,\" said Peter, Jr.\n\"No, I'm not saying that at all,\" Peter said.\nSean said, \"He got forty-seven\u2014I only got thirty-eight!\"\n\"Keep your finger out of my peas!\" Pete said.\n\"Take some of Siobhan's,\" Patty said to Sean.\nSiobhan was sulking. \"He can't have any of mine!\"\n\"That's what it sounds like you're saying,\" Patty said to Petet.\n\"What I said was don't bother coming if you're going to waltz in, spend ten\nminutes giggling with your girlfriend, then waltz out again. They're not social\nevents. We're not playing games. People are dying over there.\"\n\"There,\" Pete said. \"Now I got less than you do.\"\n\"That's because you ate them!\" Sean said.\n\"Kids!\" Patty said.\n\"That's not fait,\" Sean said. \"He ate some of them!\"\n\"Sean, just stop it,\" Patty said.\nPeter stood, lifting the bowl of peas. Leaning across the table, he slammed\nthree large spoonfuls to Sean's plate, an explosion of peas. \"Therel\" he shouted.\nSean slid back, cringing low. \"You better eat every goddam one ofithemP\nLate one night in early March Patty was awakened by Peter coming home.\nprismmagazine.ca 51 He stood at the foot of the bed in the red glow, swaying. Finally, he took off his\nglasses, put them on the nightstand and undressed, dropping his clothes on the\nrocker. Patty was quiet. He climbed into bed and put his arm across her. They\nseldom cuddled anymore. His hand found her breast, cupping it comfortably.\nHer stomach growled. She turned imperceptibly toward him, as he whispered,\n\"It's on again, the hunget strike. Some guy, Bobby Sands. They think....\"\nBut she never learned what they thought. Petet was asleep. Patty's hand slid\ndown her stomach.\nWhen she told Sheila about the resumption of the hunger strike at Healthy\nWeigh, Sheila already knew. \"I was at the last FOIL meeting.\"\n\"You were?\"\n\"Yeah. Spur of the moment, or I would have called you. At first, I thought\nBobby Sands was some teen idol from the fifties.\"\n\"See, there. You learned something already.\"\n\"The whole idea of this hunget strike thing I don't really get, though. Seems\nto me it's like holding your breath till you turn blue. Till you get what you want.\"\nPatty was surprised, disappointed. She should have guessed that Sheila didn't\nknow hunger, the truth of it, as well as she, but she thought that she had more\nimagination, more empathy. The lecture was starting: Changing your 'Weighs.'\nThe seven heavy ladies pulled out their pens and note pads, settling in. Hunger\nwas elemental, a primal force; it could eithet kill you or empower you, Patty\nknew. Sheila scribbled copiously\u2014changing her weighs. Patty didn't hear a\nword; she was thinking about corned beef and green beer and Ziggy's, and how\nshe'd danced and danced for her father.\nThe Shamrock Inn was full. The St. Patrick's seasonal spike to business had come\nearly, elevated to windfall proportions by the hunger strike. Peter in fact was\neyeing a Volvo, a long-time dream.\nPatty felt invisible. Sheila sat beside Molly Rossiter across the bar from\nPeter, the three at the eye of the storm. Talk was loud, competing with Irish\nballads blaring from the jukebox, and the rowdy singalong din. The hunger\nstrike was a prime topic, and FOIL strategy, the Irish war in general, English\nevil in particular. Frank and the othet bartenders buzzing around him, Peter\npreached, making point after point, enlightened by the wry anecdotes of Molly\nand prompted by question after question from Sheila, among others. He chewed\nup the arguments and spit them out.\nPatty had underestimated her weariness, her age; had overestimated her\ncapacity for drink, her ability to keep up with Sheila. She'd been flung to the\nperiphery by centrifugal force, now leaning in the coiner where bar met wall,\nswaying in smoky obscutity. Her seat beside Sheila had been usurped by Seamus\nRossiter when she'd gone to the ladies' room to be sick, and no one had noticed\nhet return. She was invisible.\nEvery voice in the place joined the chorus from the jukebox,\nGod save Ireland, say the heroes,\nGod save Ireland, say we all\u2014\n52 PRISM 51:1 Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die,\nOh what matter when for Ireland dear we fall!\nEvery voice but one. Patty didn't know the words. She watched Molly Rossiter\ndab at her eyes with a cocktail napkin, saw Peter use the back of his sleeve. Even\nSheila was apparently crying at the sentiment of the song.\nPatty watched the money flow over the bar in a blur, hearing the constant\nwhir of the cash registers putting bread on her table. She watched Peter, her\nhusband, pontificate, the center of attention, his broad shoulders and strong\narms that used to wrestle her, hammering home his points with charm and\ncharisma, perfecting the pitch, the used car salesman loved at last. She could\nonly watch, sinking, her head drifting closer and closer to the bar, dragged down\nby the weight of her eyelids. God help me, I'm so hungry. She watched Sheila\nwatching Peter, the glints in Sheila's eyes melding to a steady, smoldering flame.\nIn late April, Patty drove down the Troy-Schenectady Road past the abandoned\nRed Coach Grill near the Northway. Waist-high weeds now populated the\nparking lot. Her window was down for the hint of summer in the air, and she\nrefused to raise it against the chill. When she patked on Sparrowbush Lane, the\nchill melted in the warm sweet evening, and she saw the blooming forsythia, a\nbouquet of yellow sunshine tethered to the ground, much bigger now than when\nshe and Peter had lived there, fifteen years and thirty pounds ago.\nHer head was spinning; the kids had been quarreling, the washer was\nbroken, and she couldn't shake the nagging feeling of having left the iron on.\nShe longed to stop time for a moment. The buds on the maples in the back\nyard were plump, and the duplex looked much the same as when they'd lived\nthere: a different shade of trim, bigger bushes, taller trees skimming the last of\nthe sunlight from the sky. Did the young couple living there now\u2014did a young\ncouple live there now?\u2014have the fan at the foot of the bed? Patty's sex life with\nPeter had taken an odd and sudden turn for the better about a month ago, about\nthe same time the intensifying hunger strike turned Peter's hours at the pub and\nat FOIL even more erratic than ever. But after a week or two of pretending\u2014\npretending she was still thin and agile as she'd once been, pretending there was\nstill love in Peter's lust\u2014the ride was winding down.\nOnce she'd smuggled home prime rib bones from the Red Coach and she\nand Peter, nearly starving between sparse checks, had gnawed them clean in the\nmiddle of the living room floor by the light of a single candle. They'd snarled\nand growled and giggled, ripping loose every morsel of meat with their teeth,\npretending the room was theit cave. Then spreading the grease making loud,\nsweaty love\u2014as close as they'd ever come to kinky. Qr was it all something she'd\nseen on TV?\nYesterday Patty had tried to call Sheila, who hadn't been to a Healthy Weigh\nmeeting in a month, but Sheila hadn't been at work. On an impulse, Patty'd asked\nfor William, Sheila's purported boyfriend, but hadn't gotten far, not knowing his\nlast name. A young man in a torn sweatshirt came to Patty's old front door,\nwatching her. In Patty's car mirror she saw only her eyes, pale blue eyes in soft\nflesh, the weightless person escaping from beneath the ice that was melting down\nprismmagazine.ca 53 her cheeks. Only the hollowness in her chest was actual. The paradox of heavy\nand hollow; the paradox of appetite: the more you eat, the more it takes to satisfy\nthe hunger.\nThe kids were in bed when she got home. Peter was reading. \"How was the\nmeeting?\"\n\"I didn't go,\" said Patty.\n\"How come?\"\n\"Just didn't feel like it.\"\nPeter frowned away an unspoken thought. \"Sheila called. Said to say hello.\"\n\"She called j\/OM?\"\n\"She wanted to know where the next meeting is. The next FOIL meeting.\"\n\"Aren't they always at the Albany Hall?\"\n\"No.\" Peter looked at her as if the question had been asked in Martian. \"We\nalternate between Albany, Schenectady and Troy.\"\n\"Oh, right.\"\n\"I guess she's taking some course or something at Hudson Valley so she hasn't\nbeen to your weight-watchers meetings.\"\n\"Healthy Weigh.\" Patty wondered why Sheila hadn't called her.\nIt seemed oddly quiet with the television off. Patty made a cup of tea and sat\nwith her Redbook magazine across from Peter reclining with his newspaper.\n\"Did you read this?\" Peter asked, holding up the tabloid. \"In this week's\nEcho. It's called 'How a Hunger Striker Dies.'\"\n\"No.\"\nPetet went back to the article. \"Amazing. Did you know ovet a hundred men\nvolunteered to go on hunger strike with Sands?\"\n\"I didn't know there were that many in jail.\"\n\"There's over eight hundred.\" He read on. \"The bastards. The Brits. They\nkeep bringing them food, keep it in theif cells twenty-four hours a day, breakfast,\nlunch, dinner\u2014and the hunger strikers have to keep ignoring it. It says, 'To\nthe famished men, the portions seem enormous, the smells incredibly clear and\ndelicious.' God.\"\n\"They probably figure they'll eat if they get hungry enough.\"\n\"'Aftet three weeks, they're taken to the prison hospital to die,' it says. I gotta\nmake copies of this for the meeting.\"\n\"They don't die do they?\"\nThe Martian look again. \"Of course they do.\"\n\"They didn't last winter.\"\n\"They thought they'd won last winter. They've died before.\" Patty didn't like\nthe impatience with which he shook his paper to resume reading. She went back\nto her article.\n\"They get weighed daily,\" Peter said a moment later. \"They lose a pound a\nday. Can you imagine that? 'Skin becomes so parched that bones break through.\nThroats become ulcetated. Hearing and vision begin to fail. The body first digests\nall its own fat and protein, then, when that's gone, turns to the muscles, literally\ndissolving them away'\"\n54 PRISM 51:1 \"I don't really want to hear this.\"\n\"You don't?\" asked Peter.\n\"I'm trying to read an article.\"\n\"On what? 'How to make successful cupcakes'?\"\nEyes burning, Patty returned to her magazine.\nPeter read: \"'After six weeks, a loss of muscular control occurs due to vitamin\ndeficiency. Eyes gyrate wildly, causing constant vomiting and dizziness. Speech\nbecomes sluired and the men quit speaking because of the echoes of their voices\nin their heads. They become moving skeletons. Inevitably, blindness comes\nbefore death.'\"\nPatty closed het magazine. \"Do we have any ice cream left?\" she said, heading\ntoward the kitchen.\nWhen Bobby Sands died, Peter called her from the pub with the news. A\nbeautiful day in early May, the kids were home from school. Patty could heat\nsqueals and laughter from the yard where they played. After he told her Sands-\nhad died, she didn't know what to say, so she listened, to her children, to the\nbirds, to the long, dead silence on the phone.\n\"Sixty-six days,\" Peter said.\n\"Sixty-six days?\"\n\"That's how long he lasted. Frankie Hughes is next. He can't last much\nlonger.\"\n\"That's a shame.\"\n\"We're going to demonstrate on the Capitol steps. We're calling everybody.\nYou want to come down?\"\n\"How can I? The kids just got home.\"\nSands and the local demonstration were the lead stories on the evening news.\nThey showed a close-up of Molly Rossiter weeping, and other faces, other tears.\nThere was Sheila. Patty saw a sign, Hungering For fustice. There were a hundred\nor more marchers, far more than the nighr she and Sheila had first seen Peter\non television in November. When they interviewed him, Peter did well, his eyes\nsharp and dangerous through his new contacts; he seemed gaunt, as though he\nhimself had been on hunger strike.\nPatty felt a floating sensation. I didn't marry gaunt.\nSean called from the yard: \"Mom! What's fot supper?\" Patty caught het\nbreath, as though startled awake. The kitchen was cold. She'd forgotten about\ndinner. For the first time in memoty, she didn't feel hungry. Pete and Sean\nshouted in mutual joy, and Siobhan came scrambling into the house, launching\nhetself onto Patty for a flurry of kisses and hugs. On the television Sheila stood\nby Petet with a lean and hungry look.\nprismmagazine.ca 55 Julie Paul\nMR. JOHNSON'S SON\nThe day that Ronnie licked my arm and told me his father had taught him\nhow to use his tongue on the ladies, I turned mute as a mushroom in the\nforest behind the elementary school. I was frozen, shocked to the spot. There\nwas nowhere to run to that Ronnie wouldn't get to fitst. I knew Ronnie from\npreschool, all the way back to when we chewed candles togethet and exchanged\nSnoopy Valentines, right up through the ten years between, years that vanished\nthe day he stood beside me, all his new-found knowledge eating me alive.\n56 PRISM 51:1 COASTAL ROMANCE\nWild, they were wild strawberries, and we picked them\non a tiny island we could only reach when the tide was out.\nHe smelled like moss and lichen and his hair was matted from the wind.\nHe christened me with a private name, a growl in his throat.\nOn the day he phoned me, saying he was sick, and could I\nmake him feel bettet, I found long eattings on his window sill.\nThis was before he lived in a tree, in Majestic Vale, before he came to my\nwindow at three a.m., climbed in off the patio, trailing burrs.\nI didn't notice the earrings until after I gave him what he wanted, until\u2014he\nonly shrugged when I asked him. He turned to the wall and fell asleep.\nStill, these twenty years later, I dream of him, wake up hungry and bewildered,\ninhaling the scent of my husband's clean hair.\nI walk the low tide line, searching for wild strawberries: for fragraria chiloensis;\nfor Frasier sauvage; for idziaze, Chipewyn for little heart.\nprismmagazine.ca 57 ADVICE\nMake the daughter slap the mother. Make the plates break. Make the\ntablecloths fly and the crumbs turn back into cake. Make the love turn into\nsomething solid and entirely impermanent, like ice. Make that day on the\nisland in Lake Ontario, when she crossed the frozen water along a path marked\nby Christmas trees, central to your predicament. Make someone look into the\njade depths as if it were an oracle. Make all the hair in the world fall out. Make\neveryone obsolete. Make French Fries healthy and Swiss chard not. Make all\nthe holes whole and the halves holes. Make a story true by not including aliens.\nMake a story real by alienating everyone. Make shit up. Make it and make\nthem take it. Open their mouths: make them sing.\n58 PRISM 51:1 Melanie Taylor filer rent\nTranslated by Christina Vega -Westhoff\nSTORIES ADRIFT\nIt was seven at night and Julian was enraged. His day had statted at seven in\nthe morning when he picked up a professor heading to Albrook. She smelled\ngood but said little. Julian tried making conversation but only fished out a few\nmonosyllabic responses. He turned on the radio and the red and green of the\ntraffic lights bluffed with the swing of Quitate ttipa'ponermeyo's reggae beats, his\npineapple cat air freshener, the Divine Child hanging from his rearview window,\nthe tinted glass of the rear windshield, and the itchiness on his right testicle. He\nscratched it and checked out his passenger's legs through the reafview mirror\nas she looked distractedly out the window. Julian dropped her at a school. He\ncounted the money and watched her weave into the sea of square-patterned\nskirts and white socks. Fifteen minutes latef a man in a suit heading to the\nTransfstmica Social Security offices got in the car. The man smelled like cheap\ncologne and kept clearing his throat. They talked of soccer and politics. About\nsoccer they agreed, about politics they didn't. Julian suspected the man was an\nArnulfist and that his comments against the ptesident bothered the man. Julian\ndecided to change the subject. He wasn't, after all, political and why create\nan enemy at 8:20 in the morning? \"Are you getting some tests done at Social\nSecurity?\" \"Nooo man, this lady there owes me money and she hasn't paid me\nfor the last three pay periods. Yestetday she got paid and I won't let her drag it on\nany longer.\" Julian agreed. Lending money was always bad business.\nAt a quarter to nine he stopped at a stand to get a coffee. He drank down\nthe black liquid. A bachata spat out from a radio and made him move his foot\nwithout realizing it. Back in the taxi, that song Quitate tu pa'ponerme yo again\nmade him forget a few red lights. He slowed all of a sudden on a street in El\nCangiejo so he could mote comfortably observe a Sedal-dyed redhead wearing\nhip-huggers and flirty heels, with a raised butt and a tattoo on her coccyx. The\nredhead had stopped to talk on her cell phone, and Julian stopped by her side,\nhonking the horn in desperation. A line of exasperated drivers formed behind\nhim, also honking their horns. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye,\nshe twisted het mouth and turned her back on him to continue talking. He\nmade the motor roar as he pulled out, and so only heard the last syllable of the\nsonofiabitch dedicated to him at full lung from the cat behind. It made him want\nto pee and he stopped neat a mango tree in an empty lot. As he relieved himself,\na suspicious man walked by much too closely and even turned to look at Julian\nas he passed. Julian screamed \"faggot!\" at him and stuck out his finger, yes, the\nmiddle one.\nHe got back in the taxi and pulled out, this time heading towards\nTransistmica. He gave various short rides to banks and offices.\n6\"\nprismmagazine.ca 59 At noon, a couple stopped him and directed him to Ancon. Screwing around\nat this hour\u2014Julian thought\u2014with this heat, this traffic. I'm sure it's an affair.\nThe man spoke in the woman's ear, but she kept a straight face and touched her\nsunglasses nervously. \"Hey, brother, do you think you could look for us in an\nhour?\" the man said. Julian exhaled and nodded with little enthusiasm. He left\nAncon and parked in the Gran Estacion. He used the hour to call a possible lover\non the payphone since his cell phone didn't have minutes left, he drank a juice,\nate a beef empanada that left his fingers greasy and his mouth full of crumbs,\nspoke to anothef taxi driver wheel-to-wheel, and revved his engine exactly at\none. He picked up the couple and they lay lethargic in the back seat, she with\nher head hanging back, he with his eyes half-closed. Julian left them at the\nDepartment of Health on Avenida Perti. He thought about his woman, Marta;\nand his little giflfriend, Yasubel; and of his lover, Zabdis; of his kids, Julian\nAlberto and Alberto Julian, identical twins; and of his daughter Zaribeth from a\nprevious relationship. Julian decided to concentrate on Zabdis because she was\nthe newest, and he mentally replayed their last encounter in a motel just like the\none he had just left. With all his strength he wished for the money to call her\nand go get het after her boyfriend left the house. He got so excited he pushed the\naccelerator to the floor, nearly causing a triple collision. Mother-insults smashed\nagainst the glass and the windshield launched them into the wind.\nAt exactly rwo-thirry, the sun breaking bricks and the heat breaking guts,\nin front of the department store Machetazo in Calidonia, Julian stopped. A\nwoman of flaccid and abundant flesh got in, her legs marked by varicose veins\nand her arms lined with wild black down that had never seen a razor. She had\na budding mustache and she wore het white hait short. She carried bags from\nthe supermarket. Julian opened the trunk and the woman deposited the load.\nAs she stepped in the car she said in a worn-out singsong voice, \"To Villa Rica.\"\nJulian felt a kick to the stomach and hit the brakes. \"I'm not going there,\" he said\npounding the steering wheel. He moved his head about in an obstinate way, his\nhair still gelled stiff from the morning. \"This is a disgrace, young man. I'm going\nto call the police. Taxis are a public service.\" \"Call whoever you want. I'm not\nleaving!\" The taxi froze for five whole minutes. Julian moved his porcupine head\nin an emphatic no and the lady gesticulated, waved her hands about, moaned,\nand almost cried, but the brake handle did not move. With no police in sight\nand only busybodies within reach, tired and hurt, she got out of the taxi. He left\nher standing in a cloud of white smoke, surrounded by packages.\nBy three in the afternoon Julian was in a bad mood. El palo encebao made\nhim feel a bit better. He picked up some students leaving the Professional School\nand headed to the Albrook Bus Terminal. They were like bottles of soda, pure\neffervescence. Their laughter, their flirtation, the way they sang El palo encebao,\nthe contrast between their white socks and cinnamon legs, the way their blue\nskirts rose above their ankles, the suggestion of bias undet theit white shirts, the\nshine on their lips that made their smiles happier, the mascara that shone from\ntheir batting eyelashes. Julian too was happy and he told them daring things. He\nasked them if they had boyfriends, if they had cell phones\u2014that he was going\nto invite the three of them out so he could teach them something. After he left\n60 PRISM 51:1 them at the Terminal he carried his happiness with him like some children carry\ntheir lunch boxes. He was so happy that he didn't notice when the bus from Don\nBosco lightly kissed his back bumper. The sound of grinding tin woke him from\nhis happy moment and the jolt almost made him lose control. Julian got out of\nthe car in a fury, shouting all of the curse words he knew and all the permutations\nof those words. After seeing Julian leave the taxi, the bus driver decided not to\nget out of the bus; he locked the door and prepared to wait for a police officer.\nHe was a small man, short and fat with little desire for complications. Julian\nkicked the door of the bus, and when he saw the details of the damage done, he\nhit his own car, snorted, and finally he threw himself in his seat exhausted. The\npolice, the bus driver, the witnesses, and the testifiers left at six that night. He\nwatched them leave, aware he would never receive a cent from the bastard who\nhad run into him.\nHe started up the engine to the cacophony of hanging tin and an internal\npunching percussion that was unlocatable. It was seven at night. Julian wanted\nto attive at the house to sleep and to know nothing more of the day. He prayed\nthat Marta wouldn't fuck with his patience with jealousy or complaints, that\nthere would be food ready, that the twins wouldn't be crying or screaming, that\nYasubel wouldn't...the cell phone rang. It was her. She wanted to see him as\nsoon as possible. She whispered, \"papi, baby, come, come.\" Julian didn't have\nany argumenrs left in him; he was so tired he turned off the phone, and threw\nit into the back seat. I'm fucked, he thought. It was like having all the desire in\nthe world, but being bound by invisible ties. He had to get to the house and lie\ndown immediately. His whole body hurt.\nHe had steered onto Ascanio Villalaz, now dark and scarcely frequented.\nA shape shot in front of him. He braked and sat back, astonished. A woman\nwith burnt-orange hair, a short purple dress, and black boots gasped in front of\nhis headlights. He didn't think anything, he didn't yell anything, he didn't feel\nanything. He jusr looked at her like a person looking at a poster, a film preview,\na picture from a newspaper. She couldn't be real, or was she?\nThe woman, who crushed a pile of papers in her right hand, staggered to\nthe back door, and got in the car. She was sweating, her white skin blotching\nred at the cheeks, the tip of her nose and on her neck. Tears wet her entire face.\nFinally, after much panting, she let out a \"cono\" from the depths of het soul, and\nJulian accelerated. He continued until Franquipani, then he took a right at the\nSocial Security building. The woman began to talk. \"He's a son of a bitch, yes,\nan authentic one, through and through. Ay, now his woman's returned and I, tell\nme, IIIIIIIIL\" The \"I\" sounded like a wolf-woman's howl. It made the hair on\nJulian's back curl, but he kept quiet and drove. \"They were fighting, evetything\nwas already over. To do this to meeeeeeee...\" The \"me\" was like a soprano's cry\nrounding a never-ending staircase. The woman threw the pages out the window\nand into the wind. \"You see this? His great production, his last stories, they took\nhim a yeat and six months to write, one year and six months in which IIIIII\nacted as employee, secretary, cook, nurse, accountant, editot, friend, lover...\"\nShe wasn't able to continue. She just let the pages escape from her fingers. Tears\nformed in Julian's eyes. They were on Calle 50. \"Srop.\" The woman got out in\nprismmagazine.ca 61 front of the strip club Elite. She threw him two crumpled dollars and closed the\ndoor. Julian drove until his house in Tocumen without even turning his head.\nHe grabbed the money thrown on the seat and a solitary page, the only one left\nof those stories gone adrift. He read.\nIt was seven at night andfulian was enraged. His day had started at seven in the\nmorning...\nA painful laugh took hold of Julian, forcing him into contortions against the\nseat. Just as quickly he stopped laughing, crumpled the paper, and threw it into\nhis neighbour's yard. He entered his house, locked the door, and fell onto the\ncouch like a dead tree, his mind a complete blank. Soon his snoring harmonized\nwith the silence of a fantastic night.\n62 PRISM 51:1 Esther Mazakian\nSLUG POPULATIONS\nNot realizing it yet amidst errant sheets of rain needling the pines\nbut recognizing the absotbing absutdity of\ncapturing water in a veil\u2014\nsecretly in love and secretly in Scatborough. We stood\nmyopic\nmarks, viscid feelers,\npeace signs\noutside my parents' condo and you were smoking (also a secret). Metal clouds\ngunning catfish-bellies of\npithy brine overhead; later I'd find you were gay. Blackened\nslush\nand a season of slop crusted the walkway,\nbut despite the weight of February, the old lawn was\ntising, like this war, this passing self-sufficiency\u2014neuter, tight-lipped, sullen\nundet a rolled-up awning new\nsnow\ncollating\non our glutinous heads.\nprismmagazine.ca 63 CLINCH\nEmetic voicemails smarting, tipping the skin like tape off his fists, cold cracks\nthe instant he caught on to what he feared was going on without him.\nSit. I know what's happening. His whitish eyes vibrant for once.\nHe'd stood up for her in that beeping room and clasped her to him, her damp\nhair in his mourh, his cutman down. Pier father nowhere to be heard. Girl of\nhis dreams.\nA squall lashed the hospital windows, an arena crowd whooping as the blows\nsunk her in.\nShe made a mild, blind, febrile motion toward her forehead,\npalming it for some foothold. What boxes of trouble. Whooshes of inertia.\nShe'd lived alone once and never clashed.\n64 PRISM 51:1 GESTATIONAL STOCK\nEvery seed was sacred. Sketching idea outlines through\na cascade of scrutiny that deluged her. It was the year her vanity doubledowned\nand she huddled in the bathroom corner, blotto-bereaved\nbetween the blue\ntoilet bowl and the unpainted gypsum\nwallboard.\nA slapdash hurried wall of paper, mesh, dirt and screws, a backdrop\nfor a sneakpeek:\nshe went out of her mind.\nInside her pen, nowhere to turn, no shower but a sprig of\nwater from the old tub like a lab rat's watering tube. Bubbling purple sheets of\nphoney plastic ceramic.\nThen a galvanic whirring from afar, buzzing, scratching lurid chain-\nsaw\nin her brain splattering evidence that no one saw: her standing\nstill a human gravity with no choice\nbut to exist. No\nway out.\nShe was inbred in here\nto be such a pretty girl, yes yes she was, a rim-wiped-clean ordered dish.\nprismmagazine.ca 65 Rebecca Rosenbh\nmi\nTHE HOUSE THAT MODERN ART BUILT\n_L he actual house was never going to be beautiful, but that wasn't the point\u2014I\nwas hired to do a job and I was going to make sure my work was flawless even\nif it was going to get swallowed up by the larger shittiness. Like you can see this\nugly-ass bitch and you look at her and think, she's got perfect posture, so her\nbones are really beautiful.\nThat's what I was thinking in the back of Edwin's van at 7:57. We were\nonly going to get a few hours of work in before the sun was so hot the hammer\nwould skid out of your hand. That's the way August is here: disgusting. But the\nsubdivision was half-built with people living in it, and had some rule that we\ncouldn't be loud before eight, so we lost most of the cool in the morning. I don't\nthink anyone could've heard us working with most of the walls up. I also think\nif you are still sleeping that late you are your own problem, but there it was.\nThe lots were tiny frontages, and the houses were enormous, so they looked\nlike fat people in bus seats. But I was doing the kitchen, which was decent and\nonce you're in you don't see the outside. I guess that's what the morons buying\nthem thought too.\nWe had a list of custom specs from the particular moron that had bought\nthis place, including crown molding which I thought was basically assfuckery in\na design like this one, but the customer is always right. I liked working for Edwin\nbecause of the ride out from town in his van, and also the gorgeous mitre saw he\nhad. I'd been using it for the windows and now for the mouldings. I didn't love\nmy job, but to point the laser line and then slide the blade arm through the pine\nlike air\u2014it was satisfying.\nThe second I started to do any kind of work, or even move steadily, I was\nsweating. The goggles were sealing a line of sweat to my face and I couldn't be\ndrinking much when I was working indoors because I had my massive Thermos\ncooler, which sloshed all over the place. We were getting to that stage in the\nbuild, where if you left something messed up or sticky or whatever, you might\nget called out by Edwin, or even by the owners if they showed up for a surprise\nlook-see. I hated owners, hated wottying about a spill like a little kid, hated\ngoddamn Edwin, but I loved those saws.\nThe thing was, assfuckery ot not, the wotk of damn crown mouldings was\nnice\u2014even in a stupid room, if you did a good job you felt good looking at it.\nThe house had 47 neighbouts just like it, slick white suburban boxes with no\nneed for crown anything\u2014but I liked cutting the simple angled lines, fitting the\njoins, smoothing the edges. My girlfriend, Julianna, was a poet, all staring out\nwindows and imagining shit, but I liked real things, like the wood that framed\nthe window. Things you could touch and feel proud of, instead of a bunch of\nscribbles on a page.\n66 PRISM 51: When Edwin came in from helping the other guys pouring concrete in the\ngarage, he was not as happy with the work as I would've thought.\n\"Speed it along, please,\" he said. \"Stop with the perfectionism. This guy, he\nwants crown moulding so as he can say he got crown moulding. It don't need to\nbe fit for a king.\"\nNow that pissed me right off. What I said about making beautiful bones\neven if no one will see obviously did not apply in Edwin's cost breakdown.\n\"You want me to stop and let Caleb or Joey do it?\"\n\"Fuck no. Those losers? Just make up time in the dining rooms, and wherever\nelse. This ain't fucking modern art, all right?\" Edwin didn't smoke, but he always\ntalked like he had a cigar jammed in the comer of his mouth.\nI kept my mouth shut and hustled it through the dining room without\nbarely looking\u2014I couldn't stand to look\u2014and the day got hotter.\nWhen I got home I was pissed off because Edwin kept us waiting in the hot van\nfot 10 minutes while he shot the shit with the guy who installed the window-\nglass. Then he kept a tenner off my pay because he said I'd busted a blade off the\njig saw and what he thought I would've been doing with a jig saw out there I just\ndon't fucking know.\nJulianna was getting dressed to go to work, which was sort of the problem\nwith her job. She was a waitress at an Olive Garden because she never got paid\nanything for her poems\u2014not that that stopped her writing. That meant she was\nalways out in the evening without me. She kept saying that she wasn't \"out\" if\nshe was at work. But fact remained, she was with all these douchey pasta-eating\nguys, who would pat her ass, of course, because she had a sweet little curve back\nthere, and she wore these fucking shorts that you could not believe were part\nof a uniform at a family restaurant\u2014a saintly white blouse and these tiny black\nshorts like a Hooters whore. One time she'd been leaving when Edwin dropped\nme off, and he was practically hanging out the driver's window watching her\nwalk down the sidewalk. I'm sure it was like that her whole way to the restaurant.\nOn the other hand, at least she was hot, so the tips were good. I always told her\nto just scrape off the sauce and eat that, not the noodles, because carbohydrates\nwere bad for her ass. I don't know if she listened to me\u2014I bet she didn't\u2014but\nshe still looked damn good. It was a blessing and a curse, that ass.\nI dumped my lunch stuff and the Thetmos cooler and my shirt\u2014Edwin\ndon't allow the guys to be shirtless on the site because he says it's unprofessional,\nbut in the van we all strip off fast.\n\"Hey?\" Julianna was twisting her blouse over her stomach. \"Danny?\" Then\nshe just stood there blocking the bathroom door while I was just sweating and\ndying for the John, like she didn't know she had said anything.\n\"What, Julianna? What?\"\n\"I think Archie's feeling sick today. Could you keep an eye on him?\"\n\"Archie?\" She was watching me with her big dumb eyes, making me feel like\nI was the dumb one. Finally, I got it\u2014\"The cat? Oh, he's fine. Cats are animals;\nthey take care of themselves.\" I only got a step forward before she grabbed my\narm. Her hands were like ice, and I remembered why I liked her again.\nprismmagazine.ca 67 \"I'm going. Jusr if\u2014if he seems really bad, you'll call me at work, won't you?\"\nI shook her hand off and took another step. \"No, I will not call so you can\nskip off for some orange rodent and lose the only job you could get.\"\n\"I won't\u2014I just wanted\u2014\"\n\"Go to wotk, or it'll be you and that cat both feeling sick.\" I shut the\nbathroom door before she could start up again. Her goddamn poetry notebooks\nwere all over the bathroom counter. I don't know what that was about.\n\"They want to eat gravy but pay dry,\" said Edwin\u2014some fucking metaphor. He\nwas worse than Julianna that way, because Julianna never even had a point to\nstart with, but Edwin was actually talking about the house owner refusing to pay\nproper labour costs, and it would've been nice to understand that earlier in the\nconversation.\nThis was the next night: he ranted all the drive to my place and then he\nwanted to come in. I knew he was hoping she'd be there. But what can you say\nwhen your boss drives you home and goes, \"Got any beer?\"\nAt least she wasn't there, though actually that pissed me off too\u2014she\nshould've scheduled het shifts so we were home at the same time occasionally.\nAnd the cat was there, running apeshit circles around our ankles, getting orange\nfuzz all over the bottoms of my jeans. Edwin was looking at the bottle of 50 I\nhanded him as if I'd fished it out of the sea. He was reading the label for a full\nminute\u2014there were about four words on there. I oughta've shown him one of\nJulianna's endless poems\u2014it would've taken him out of commission fot a week.\nFinally he took a swig, swallowed and looked down at the orange mess\nswirling around his feet. \"Your cat?\"\n\"It's Julianna's.\"\n\"Seriously?\" He bent down and gave it a testing kind of pat, as if you could\ntell by the fur who it belonged to.\n\"Seriously. You know a guy with a cat?\"\nEdwin set his fat ass in a chair. \"I've known just about everything in my\ntime.\"\n\"I bet.\" We drank in silence for a moment. Edwin wasn't a bad boss. He got\nthe job done, and he didn't put up with shit unless he was putting it out himself.\nI could've almost liked the guy if he didn't have a hatd-on for my girlfriend.\n\"What's she up to these days, Julianna?\"\n\"Workin'. She's working. Olive Garden.\"\nHe leered like he was going to say something filthy and I clenched up. \"Oh\nman, I love them garlic sticks. You eat free there?\"\n\"Naw, I gotta pay unless she btings leftovers home after work.\"\nHe leaned back. \"She a waitress? How long till the end of her shift?\"\n\"Long. They don't close until ten, and then there's the cleanup, reset,\netcetera.\"\n\"Etcetera. Yeah. I bet if you come in there though, she'll treat you right,\nright? Extra sauce, the good wine instead of the shitty house stuff?\"\nGod, he was so hot for her, even the food she served was sexy to him.\n\"Dunno. I never tried that.\"\n68 PRISM 51:1 \"Oh yeah?\" He set the bottle on the table, and stood, hitching his belt. \"You\ntell Juli I might be stopping in some suppertime. You never know til you try.\"\nI thought about clocking him one but I needed the job, and I was so hot and\ntired, and I'd drunk that beer so fast, I didn't know if I'd heard what I thought I'd\nheard. When I closed the door behind him, the goddamn spooky-eyed cat was\nstaring at me. I can't take that shit. I knocked him with my foot just a bit as I\nwent back down the hall\u2014just to remind him to show a little respect. He sounds\njust like her when he wails.\nThis house job was going straight to shit. The owner started coming by once\na day, sometimes twice. He thought we were too slow, that we were somehow\nlollygagging on all these fancy extras he wanted. He walked around with his\nhands in his pockets looking at stuff he didn't understand. I'm not even sure he-\nknew what crown moulding was when he asked for it, maybe he just thought\nanything with the word crown in it had to be good. He sure did stare at it for a\nlong time, sort of squinting, like he was trying to make it out.\nOne super-hot day, he just stood at the other end of the living room, fiddling\nwith a tape measure like a little kid\u2014pulling it out to watch it snap back. So\nfucking annoying. I was sanding up the ends before up started the window\nframes. I didn't like to work when he was there, but you gotta get something\ndone sometime, especially when he was pushing for faster work. Of course he\ncame over and looked at what I was doing and asked what I was sanding the end\nbits for. \"It need that?\"\nI'd've dearly loved to not answer. But it was pretty clear I heard. \"Yeah, it\nneeds that. If you want a tight join.\"\n\"Yeah?\"\n\"Yeah.\"\nFie pushed off the wall then, and went out. I noticed he took the tape\nmeasure.\nI got home late and there was nothing to eat\u2014a bunch of old books on the\ncounter, for some reason. I read a poem about ice on a lake\u2014it wasn't bad, and\nI would've told Julianna so if she'd been there to hear it. I went and picked up\nshrimp pad thai, came back, ate it while watching a movie where a dog plays\nbasketball. The cat went up on the table while I was in the can and he stole a\nshrimp. I locked him in the pantry, tossed the cat-saliva contaminated food,\nopened a beer, watched the rest of the movie, then Leno. Nearly midnight and\nJulianna still wasn't home. I shotgunned anothet beet in the kitchen so I'd sleep.\nIn bed I felt like I'd stay awake, but then it was morning and Julianna was cutled\nbeside me in a white linen ball, so I must've fallen asleep.\nWork continued to be bullshit\u2014still hot, still dull, still the fucking owner\nbegging us to cut corners and Edwin agreeing. All the time I spent on them\ncupboards, then they put on the plastic door pulls. Like zits on a petfect vanilla\nass.\nprismmagazine.ca 69 \"You can't be telling the client what he needs. It's the client who tells us.\"\nEdwin was unloading boards from the truck\u2014I didn't even know what they\nwere for. There was something else now?\nI tried to stay on topic. \"Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally, don't the\nclient tell us at the beginning what he wants, and then leave things be? Correct\nme if I'm wrong, but the client is not usually in the house while we're doing the\nwork.\"\n\"It is what it fucking is, Danny. I pay you the same per hour whether he tells\nyou the job a thousand times. This ain't modem art, I toldja. So eatn yout money\nand quit bugging me, ok?\" He shoved the ends of the some 12-foot 2x4s at me.\nI grabbed the wood and breathed deep. I needed all the oxygen I could get.\n\"Fine.\"\nWe plonked the boards on the lawn. As I turned to go, he said, \"I was\nright\u2014your Juli does help a guy out with a few extra breadsticks and the good\nwine.\"\nI stopped with my back to him, just because that's where I was when I\nstopped, but it was good because I needed to work out what he was saying,\nif it was another fucking metaphor: Did he actually just go eat in Julianna's\nrestaurant, or did he lay her?\n\"So you went to the Garden, didja?\" I said it like it was a code, which is all\nmetaphot is. \"What'dya get?\" I finally turned, but looking at his face didn't help;\nhe was just smiling like an idiot, squinting into the sun.\n\"Them lasagna rolls, man\u2014those are the bomb.\"\n\"What time didja go? To the restaurant?\"\n\"Late...lateish. I figured if it was the rush they wouldn't like her chatting\nwith a friend\u2014\" Edwin was not Julianna's friend \"\u2014so I went just afore close,\nlike.\"\n\"Like.\"\n\"You're a lucky man, Danny, and don't forget it. She let me stay whiles they\nwas closing up and we had a little chat. Sweetheart, that one. Sweetheart.\"\n\"Well, I'm glad you and Julianna had such a lovely evening.\" He didn't seem\nto be getting my tone, but that was an act. To get that tone out of me was the\nwhole point of the conversation.\n\"You two ever step out on the town? I know a place, a couple young\nsweethearts of my acquaintance introduced me. Dancing, good beers on tap,\ngood-looking people...\"\nI opened my mouth and he just about thrusts a hand in. \"Not a pickup\njoint\u2014classy. You could take your lady for a night on the town.\"\n\"Well\u2014-\"\n\"You oughta think about it. These gills that I'm taking out tonight, they're\nall right, but they'll go with who pays for drinks, y'know. Would be nice to have\nyou and Juli there too, for real conversation, y'know?\"\nI shook my head, nudged the narrow boards with my foot.\n\"You just think about it. We won't be waitin' on you, like\u2014\" that wink\nagain, my god, I oughta've stove his face in when he did that. \"I'll give you the\naddress.\"\n70 PRISM 51:1 At home, the place was just piles of dishes and books and crap, and Julianna on\nthe floor, playing with the fucking cat. \"What're you doing?\"\n\"What? How was your day?\" She scrambled up to big-girl level, but she still\nhad this piece of purple ribbon trailing from her hand, so the cat was hopping\nup and down beside her.\n\"Bar none disaster. The owner of the house is totally dicking us.\"\nShe patted my arm with her hand flat, not curved around it. \"That's too bad,\nDanny. I got some veal for dinner, if you want.\"\nI tried to look at her and see if she looked dirty, like a liar. When I met her\nshe was a virgin, or that's what she said. Actually she wrote a poem about it, how\nI was the only one, ever. I wasn't sure. She was hot, Julianna\u2014I knew that even\nthough when you've fucked someone a lot of times, it's hard to see their hotness.\nBut Julianna was just borderline of magazine quality; short and with a bit of an\nass, but that's what I liked anyways. That's what Edwin liked, too.\n\"It was on sale. Frozen stuff.\" I guess she thought me looking her over so\nhard-eyed was because she bought expensive fucking veal. Her giant blue cow\neyes didn't tell me anything\u2014I didn't know if I trusted her and I didn't know\nwhat I would do if I realized I didn't trust her. Walk out? How fucking crazy\nwould that be?\n\"What's modern art?\" I said it because I suddenly knew she'd know. She'd\ngone to university, though she dropped out when I got the job out here.\n\"What?\" She dropped the ribbon. The cat grabbed it in his teeth and shook,\nlike he was breaking its neck. \"What do you mean?\"\n\"You know, modem art. The expression, the thing people say.\"\n\"What, like Clement Greenberg? Or like Ezra Pound?\"\n\"No, not like history. I mean Edwin's always going, 'It's not modern art,'\nwhen I want something I'm working on to be bettet and he doesn't. Like he\ndoesn't want me to do too good a job.\"\n\"Oh, that's an expression. Like, it's not that important.\"\nIt was like a punch in the gut. It was good to know that's what she thought\nof my work. Good to know she was so knowledgeable about Edwin's expressions.\nJust fucking great. I went into the kitchen to get away from her. As soon as the\ndoor shut I slammed my fist into the wall beside the fridge so hard plaster dust\nwaterfalled onto the tile and the motherfucking cat who had followed me in here\nfor some goddamned reason when I just needed a moment to think.\nOf course Julianna came running when she heard the crunch. I couldn't\neven tell if she was pretending to care when she touched my busted up bleeding\nknuckles. Or was she cooing over me when she was wet fot fucking Edwin? I\nshoved her back and she skitteted into the counter where the slushy meat was\nthawing. The cat trotted up to her and sank his teeth into het calf like it was a\ntibbon. She squawked, her ponytail disintegrating around her face.\nIt felt like there was no choice. I had to see for myself. \"C'mon, brush your\nhair; we're going out.\"\nI watched her very, very carefully. When we first saw Edwin, she nodded and\ngrinned and let him kiss her cheek. We sat at the bar with these two awful\nprismmagazine.ca 71 females of the sort you'd expect in a place playing Shania Twain followed by\nAerosmith. Super-young, not pretty but with boobs that seem to be resting on\nshelves inside their bras, and thick dark eyeliner.\nIt was an awful night, because everybody had some sort of plan or agenda,\nin addition to the usual one of just getting pissed drunk. Julianna was trying to\nget me to not be mad but in that idiot way she had of pretending not to know\nwhy I was mad in the first place, so she wouldn't have to stop what she was doing\nor apologize at all. She just rubbed up against me the whole night, all big- eyed.\nThose sad girls Edwin brought just wanted to get bought drinks and patted on\nthe bum every once in a while, so they could bicker with each othet about who\nEdwin really liked. Edwin was happy to buy their rum and Diet Cokes and pat\nwhatever was available, but he was obviously after Julianna. He wasn't subtle\nabout reaching around her to flag the waitress, clapping his hand down on her\nthigh every time he laughed. She didn't even blink. He was so familiar with\nher it seemed pretty obvious that they'd slept together, calling her Juli as if he'd\nknown her forever, grabbing a sip of her drink when she looked away\u2014then,\nwhen she caught him, just giving a little wink and licking his lips\u2014as if he was\nremembering how she tasted.\nThe worst thing was, I felt like Edwin was mainly doing it to get at me; she\nwas hot, but the two bits sitting on the other side of him weren't that bad, and\nthey weren't playing hatd to get like she was. Not that hard, though\u2014Julianna\nlaughed when she saw him licking her beer foam off his lip, a wet chitp that\nsounded way too into it for me to believe all the surprised looks she gave to his\nwandering hands. I was a rock, though, just staring at the hockey on the screen\nover the bar, minding my business, peeling labels off my empties, waiting out the\nnight.\nFinally, finally, it was last fucking call and we could let the evening die. We'd\ntaken the bus over, but Edwin offered us a drive in his van, and Julianna goes,\n\"No way, you're plastered,\" like she was his wife or something. And he just hands\nher the keys, same way, like they were the couple and I was just some asshole\ngetting a free ride home.\nSo she lit out across the parking lot\u2014just like that. Edwin jogged up to her\nelbow with the two girls trailing behind. That long blond hair glowed a kind\nof grey-silver in the streetlamps' glare, and it swung just a few inches above her\nround little rump. In the end, it wasn't Edwin's fault, although of course he was a\nfucker. Just, it was natural for a man to covet a beautiful lady, and anyway, Edwin\nnever promised me he wouldn't. It was Julianna that had made me promises,\nwritten me little post-it bathroom-mirror poems about true forever, all that shit,\nand it was her I held responsible now.\nEdwin goes, \"Well, Danny, your woman has secured the front seat for you.\nGuess I'll make myself at home on the hump.\" He and the girls laughed so hard\nyou could see the backs of their throats. He climbed into the middle of them,\nand off we went.\nI was ignoring Julianna, and I couldn't talk much to them in the back seat.\nEdwin had somehow sweet-talked both of the girls into his lap. Julianna was\nall prissy, \"Is that really safe?\" The girls just laughed like hyenas, and started\n72 PRISM 51:1 yammering on about who liked Edwin more. \"No me,\" \"No me,\" just barely\neven words, but they sure could go on. Then one of them shifted sideways over\nhis knee so that I, turning from the front seat, could see right till Sunday in the\nflash from oncoming cars as we pulled onto the highway back to town. I kinda\ngot hypnotized.\nThat's why it took a moment for me to realize the car was skewing onto the\nsoft shoulder. I looked over at Julianna and her face was wet. \"What?\"\nShe just kept up crying and braking and didn't take her eyes off the road.\n\"No, what's this? I say something to you? I didn't say no goddamn thing to\nyou.\"\n\"A ca-at.. .there was\u2014uh, uh\u2014a cat!\"\nWe'd come to a still-stop by that point. Them in the back were wasted, but\nthey still could recognize we weren't moving. \"What the fuck?\"\n\"Just calm down, Juli, honey.\" Edwin actually leaned forward between his\ntwo blitzed beauties and put his hand on Julianna's shaking shoulder. She didn't\neven notice, as if he'd done it a thousand times.\n\"That.. .that.. .1 gotta get the cat.\"\nI guess if I'd been sober I would've worked out that she'd meant in the road\nthere was a cat, but I wasn't and now we were fully stopped in the goddamn datk\nand Julianna was both sobbing like a maniac and trying to get out of the fucking\ncar in the pitch-dark with cats whipping by at a thousand miles per hour. So I\ngrabbed her by her skinny arm and yanked her back in the car. \"We're gonna\ndrive home, and then we'll get the cat. The cat is at home, you dumb bitch.\"\n\"The cat, I hit it, there's a cat on the road that's hit and I've got to help it.\nThere's a cat!\"\nFinally I got what she was saying through the beer fog. I brought my voice\ndown so the others wouldn't hear\u2014not that they gave a fuck. Edwin had lost\ninterest and was necking with the blonder one; the one more like Julianna.\n\"Yeah, well, don't add yourself to the graveyard. You can't go running around on\nthe highway in the middle of the night.\"\n\"I can see what's coming.\" And she pulled herself towards the door again but\nI got my fingers dug into her arm. \"Danny, I've got to help that cat.\"\n\"Well, maybe you should've not hit it in the first place. C'mon, everybody's\ntired and drunk. Let's go home.\"\nShe twisted and managed to get free, I don't know how. That girl was an eel.\nShe had the door open and was out before I realized I'd lost her. But I got out\npretty fast, too.\nShe was plastered to the driver's side door when I got to her\u2014a semi had\njust gone by and the car was wobbling in the gravel. \"Get in the car, Julianna. I\nfucking mean it.\"\n\"I c-c-c-ouldn't stop, Jessie and Jayle don't got seatbelts and they would've\ng-g-g-one thtough the windshield.\" She was talking like het teeth wete chattering.\n\"Well, good you didn't kill no one over a fucking rodent, Juli.\"\n\"Cats aren't rodents,\" she scteamed at me, het mouth wide and spit flying.\nShe started to lunge at some white streak a hundred metres back in the right-\nhand lane\u2014even I could see there were headlights coming. It was starting to\nprismmagazine.ca 73 seem like she'd had something more to drink when I hadn't been looking.\nI grabbed her arm again and the other one too, flipped her round and\nslammed her hard against the car. \"You can't fucking run in the street, Julianna.\nYou need to take responsibility fot murdering that cat, so take it and buck up.\"\nShe was crying so much it was like her face was melting. \"I-I-I-I\u2014\"\nI smacked her a good one across the mouth, came away with a hand coated\nin snot and tears and spit. \"Get it together. Now you gonna drive or am I? You're\nthe one that wanted to be the designated driver, and a fucking mess you've made\nof it. So maybe me driving wasted is better than you sober, what do you think?\"\nShe was trying to drop down out of my hands now, to curl up on the ground.\nThank god she didn't weigh very much.\nThe nexr semi flattened me against her, but not hatdly in a sexy way, not with\nher in that state. When it was gone I shoved my hand behind her back, opened\nthe door, and crammed her in with the other two bitches.\n\"Edwin, take shotgun. I'm driving now.\"\nI got us home just fine, though I did take out Edwin's mailbox. Served him\nright, specially since the next day he told me he didn't think there'd be all that\nmuch carpentry work for me the rest of summer. Fuckin' liar. Also the next day,\nJulianna showed me the bruises on her arms and her swollen lip, but I told her\nwhat the fuck else was I supposed to do? She didn't have an answer to that\u2014she\nnever does, once she calms down and sees sense.\n74 PRISM 51:1 Ben Ladouceur\nI AM IN LOVE WITH YOUR BROTHER\nRichie made me promise not to relate any stories of\nembattassment or crime, but Richie, on\nthis, the evening of your nuptials, I must tell them about\nour long day in Truro, I just must, the fallacy then\nwas a dark twin of tonight's fallacy, we\nand the dogs \u2014 who are thought to be clairvoyant\non these matters \u2014 anticipated storms\nthat never came, and here we are now, beneath\na tarpaulin, on an evening they reported\nwould be clear and ideal for regattas.\nAs Truro woke, as birds of Truro wailed\nmorning song, Richie came across my notebook, open\nto its core, where read these simple wotds:\nI AM IN LOVE WITH YOUR BROTHER.\nThe first line, I insisted, of a song I'd been arranging\nto be played on the Wurlitzer, though now I\ncome clean, Richie, while your soul is at its smoothest\nand most forgiving, I did love him, the crimson acne\nflecked across his neck, he was like a man\na guillotine had made an attempt at and failed.\nWe rolled that whole notebook into joints, didn't we\nRichie, then drove into the boonies to shove ammo\ninto rifles folk left by their porch\ndoors. That summer, your brother's motorboat\nslipped into the Itish Sea, his mannequin body\ndemolished, and I'll bet he is here now, and is\nglad, I will bet, I am sure of this. Caroline, Richie\nis one hell of a guy. You would do best to keep\nhis body firmly in yours, how seas contain boats, how\ntrees contain birds, for he is only stories to me now.\nprismmagazine.ca 75 MIDDLE NAMES\nWhar illnesses we have\nwe have in common. Your body sublets mine\nas, without, both the front and the back lawn\nradiate, so it must have rained\nwhile we, in a dark room, got embossed, got\nprosperous, my mouth\ncould not find words or water.\nMiddle names are clumsy\nwith their beauty: they are the wisdom teeth\nof out identities. Learning yours\nwas like watching a monarch butterfly\ndie, over time, between two window panes.\n76 PRISM 51:1 GRAN VALS\nText message from Daniel:\nI don't know where you are but if you can see the point on the horizon where the\nsun is about to set, it's beautiful. The clouds look (1\/2)\nAnd the second part never came.\nThat week the sky was always violet at dinnertime, and some ducks always\nresided in its bottom right-hand corner, punctuation marks, to render the\ngotgeousness legible.\nI left my windowless office and made for the waterside, the locks.\nViolet and matte like a belly smeared in lube because the bottle cracked\u2014how\nhard, that one night, did we laugh!\nSomething arrives and grants you fastet access to those dtiest, smallest zones.\nNow I understand. I have been a problem. I have been ameliorated.\nThe clouds look what, Daniel?\n\u2014[The clouds look] like the ghosts of men who died while procuring oil from the\nsea before you were born, before even I was born. (2\/2)\n\u2014[The clouds look] like a type of candyfloss they don't make anymore. (2\/2)\n\u2014[The clouds look] so weary, from what, who could say. (2\/2)\n\u2014[The clouds look] at me and I look at them and there is nowhere I cannot go,\nBen, I have all the materials I need. (2\/2)\nprismmagazine.ca 77 CONTRIBUTORS\nKathryn Dillard received her MA in English at The University of California-\nDavis in June 2012. She currently resides in central California and plans to pursue\na PhD in Creative Writing in Fall 2013. Her manuscript, Diptych, explores how\npoems, when composed as dyadic structures, mirror social relations.\nGerald Fleming's most recent book, Night of Pure Breathing, was nominated\nfor a National Book Award. He taught in the San Francisco public schools for\nthirty-seven years, and has published three books for teachers. \"Man of New\nSkin\" is from a new collection, The Choreographer, forthcoming next spring.\nMelanie Taylor Herrera is a Panamanian writer and musician. She is the author\nof numerous collections of fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The\nBarcelona Review and Letralia, as well as in the anthologies Mkroantologia del\nMicrorrelato III and CuentAutismo. Additional translations are forthcoming in\nEzra and Metamorphoses.\nElizabeth Hoover is a poet, critic, and journalist based in Pittsburgh,\nPennsylvania. Her poetry has appeared in Plainsongs, Poetry Nortlnvest,\nMassachusetts Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Folio, among othets. She is\ncurrently working on a biography of Robert Hayden and you can see mote of\nher work at www.ehooverink.com.\nBen Ladouceur is a recent graduate of Carleton University's Canadian Studies\nMasters program. His poems have been previously featured in The Malahat\nReview, CV2, and in chapbooks by above\/ground press, Apt. 9 Press, and\nAngelHousePress. His website is benladouceur.wordpress.com.\nEsther Mazakian's first book, All the Lifters, was shortlisted for a ReLit Award.\nHer work has appeared in The Malahat Review, ARC, and Arsenal Pulp Press'\n2009 anthology Fist of the Spider Woman.\nDennis McFadden's collection of stories, Hart's Grove, was published in June\n2010 by the Colgate University Press; his fiction has appeared in dozens of\npublications, including Best American Mystery Stories 2011, TJje Missouri Review,\nNew England Review, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fiction,\nThe South Carolina Review and Crazyhorse.\nMatt McLean lives and works in Victoria, BC.\nJulie Paul's poems have appeared in Event, TJje Malahat Review, Vallum and\nQwerty. Her book of short fiction, The Jealousy Bone, was published in 2008. She\nlives in Victoria, BC.\n78 PRISM 51:1 Michael Quilty lives near the shore of Georgian Bay. His poetry has appeared\nin several North American journals, most recently 77^ Fiddlehead (No. 251,\nContest \"Honourable Mention\") and Vallum 7:2. The three poems included\nhere are somewhat self-inflicted and taken from a new collection titled Portrait of\na Head Shot. His previous collection, Harbouring, remains quiet and publishable.\nRebecca Rosenblum's Once won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was one of Quill\nand Quire's 15 Books That Mattered in 2008. Her chapbook, Road Trips, was\npublished by Frogs Hollow Press in 2010. Her second full-length collection, The\nBig Dream, was released in 2011 and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor\nInternational Short Story Prize. Her blog is rebeccarosenblum.com.\nLevi van Veluw's photo series are self-portraits, drawn and photographed by\nhimself: a one-man process. His works constitute elemental transfers; modifying\nthe face as object; combining it with other stylistic elements to create a third\nvisual object of great visual impact. Since having graduated from the Artez Art\nSchool in Arnhem, the Netherlands, Levi van Veluw has enjoyed a remarkable\namount of success in a short period of time, with his work being showcased in\nseveral different locations across Europe and the States, earning him a number\nof prestigious awards that include the Photographer of the Year Award at the IPA\nInternational Photo Awards in the USA. www.levivanveluw.com\nChristina Vega-Westhoff is a poet, translator, teacher, and aerialist living in\nTucson. Her poetry appears in Fieralingue and Spiral Orb and is forthcoming in\n1913: A Journal of Forms and The Lumberyard Magazine. Additional translations\nof Melanie Taylor Herrera's work are forthcoming in Ezra and Metamorphoses.\nSherry Wong was born and raised in China. She started to tell stories when she\nwas a child and wrote her firsr play at age eleven. In 1988 she immigrated to\nCanada, where she is now a financial advisor by day and passionate writer by\nnight. She is working on her first novel: My Great Escape. \"Dandelion\" is her first\nliterary publication in English.\nKirby Wright was a Visiting Fellow at the 2009 International Writers Conference\nin Hong Kong, a Visiting Writer at the 2010 Martha's Vineyard Residency, and\n2011 Artist-in-Residence at Milkwood International, Czech Republic. Lie is the\nauthot of the companion novels Punahou Blues and Molokdi Island, Child of the\nGreat Sea Goddess Hina, both set in the islands.\nprismmagazine.ca 79 rs\n\u00a9peative WpitepgJ\n\/fo\/ex is proud to be tne\nprinter jor Prism Maaazine.\nROLEX\nPLASTICS &\nPRINTING LTD\nwww.rolexplastics.com Call Toll-free 1-888-478-5553 UBC Boc fcstore\nCanada's larges\nuniversity gener\nbookstore.\n1r \u25a0\nSave 20%\non new releases everyday!\nJoin our bookclub.\nI. \u25a0 \u25a0 \u25a0 \u25a0\u25a0' i'-\n8i!iS!S!iSl*\/ DeKATIT\nDescant offers a forum\nfor the expression and\ndiscussion of literature,\nart and contemporary\nissues through the work\nof new and established\nvoices in an exquisitely\nproduced journal of\ninternational acclaim.\nDescant openly welcomes\nsubmissions of poetry,\nshort stories, essays,\ninterviews and visual\npresentations.\n\"Descant is amazingly beautiful,\nstunningly edited, and will make you\nfeel glad to be human. \"\n- Leon Rooke Canadian magazines are captivating.\nAnd so are you. That's why we publish hundreds of lines, so you knowinere's one just for\nyou. Alt you have to do is head to the newsstands, look for the Genuine Canadian Magazine\nicon marking truly Canadian publications and start reading. It's that easy.\nVisit magaziitsscanada.o^ri'? and newsstands to find your new favourite magazine.\n1\n'\u2022\u2022\u00ab\u25a0\u00ab!.\n\u25a0ftft:ft i ft\u00ab;> 5ft\n\u2022*\u2022 4rJ|\nftft The Creative Writing Program at U.B.C.\n1 The University of British Columbia offers both\n' a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master\nof Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing. The\nM.F.A. degree may also be taken by distance\neducation. See our website for more details.\nStudents work in multiple genres, including:\nPoetry, Novel\/Novella, Short Fiction, Stage\nPlay, Screen &? TV Play, Radio Play, Writing for\nChildren, Non-fiction, Translation, and Song\nLyrics &? Libretto.\nSteven Galloway\nKeith Maillard\nMaureen Medved\nAndreas Schroeder\nLinda Svendsen\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, Annabel Lyon, Susan Musgrave\n&? Karen Solie\nwww.creativewriting.ubc.ca SUBSCRIBE TO PRISM AND SAVE!\n\u25a1 Two-year subscription (8 issues): Canadian $55, American $63, International $69\n\u25a1 One-year subscription (4 issues): Canadian $35, American $40, International $45\nResidents outside Canada please pay in US funds. US POSTAL money orders are not accepted. Please make cheques payable to: PRISM international.\nName: \t\nAddress: \t\nCity:\t\nProvince\/State: Postal\/Zip Code:\nEmail: \t\nD Payment enclosed D Bill me later\nVISA\/MC: Exp. 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E462-1866 Main Mall\nVancouver, BC, V6T1Z1\nCanada PRISM is contemporary writing\nKathryn Dillard\nGerald Fleming\nMelanie Taylor Herrera\nElizabeth Hoover\nBen Ladouceur\nEsther Mazakian\nDennis McFadden\nMatt McLean\nJulie Paul\nMichael Quilty\nRebecca Rosenblum\nChristina Vega-Westhoff\nSherry Wong\nKirby Wright\n7 ' 72006\" 86361' 2\n01\nCover Photo:\n\"Landscapes IV by Levi van Veluw, courtesy of Ron Mandos gallery\nprismmagazine.ca\n$12","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/hasType":[{"value":"Periodicals","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/identifier":[{"value":"PR8900.P7","type":"literal","lang":"en"},{"value":"PR8900_P7_051_001","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/isShownAt":[{"value":"10.14288\/1.0135388","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/language":[{"value":"English","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/schemas\/edm\/provider":[{"value":"Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/publisher":[{"value":"Vancouver : The Creative Writing Program of the University of British Columbia","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/rights":[{"value":"Materials provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the Prism international: http:\/\/prismmagazine.ca","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/subject":[{"value":"Creative writing Periodicals","type":"literal","lang":"en"},{"value":"Poetry--Periodicals","type":"literal","lang":"en"},{"value":"Canadian literature -- Periodicals","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/title":[{"value":"Prism international","type":"literal","lang":"en"}],"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/type":[{"value":"Text","type":"literal","lang":"en"}]}}