"d5fdb503-2579-4c9b-afeb-7503d37a4dc7"@en . "CONTENTdm"@en . "Prism international 45:2 / Winter 2007"@en . "http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=1215619"@en . "Prism international"@en . "Prism international"@en . "2015-08-10"@en . "2007-01"@en . "The following description is provided by the publisher:
2006 PRISM NONFICTION CONTEST ISSUE
JUDGE\u00E2\u0080\u0099S ESSAY
Deborah Campbell
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
\u00E2\u0080\u009CReunion\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Patrick Tobin
RUNNER-UP
\u00E2\u0080\u009CSleeping with Eyes Wide Open\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Joelene Heathcote
FICTION
\u00E2\u0080\u009CTrespassing\u00E2\u0080\u009D / \u00E2\u0080\u009CThe Petrified Forest\u00E2\u0080\u009D / \u00E2\u0080\u009CMy Wife in the Bath\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Tyrone Jaeger
\u00E2\u0080\u009CCrocodile Tears\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Chris Kuhn
POETRY
\u00E2\u0080\u009CI Don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t Remember Telling the Stepsons\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Heather Sellers
\u00E2\u0080\u009CYayo to Yahweh\u00E2\u0080\u009D / \u00E2\u0080\u009CWeird Light\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Michael Lista
\u00E2\u0080\u009C[Motion downward]\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Mary Flanagan
\u00E2\u0080\u009CPieces\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Barry Dempster
\u00E2\u0080\u009CThe Oil Crisis\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Nuno J\u00C3\u00BAdice translated from the Portugese by paulo da costa
\u00E2\u0080\u009CFall back: warming the engine\u00E2\u0080\u009D / \u00E2\u0080\u009CFall back: off leash\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Ariel Gordon
\u00E2\u0080\u009CDoggy Style\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Stan Rogal
\u00E2\u0080\u009CIn Defence of Love and the New Mexico Landscape\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Daniel Priest
\u00E2\u0080\u009CTelemarketing\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Robert Brazeau
\u00E2\u0080\u009CRinging the Number\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Knute Skinner
\u00E2\u0080\u009CSt. Margaret\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Square\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Stephanie Yorke
\u00E2\u0080\u009CEntertainment: lunatic\u00E2\u0080\u0099s ball\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Nadine McInnis
\u00E2\u0080\u009CThe Falls\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Maurine Hynes
\u00E2\u0080\u009CSpitting Images\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Tracy Hamon
\u00E2\u0080\u009CAn Epigram for the Muses\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Susan McCaslin
\u00E2\u0080\u009CAnother Uneasy Spring\u00E2\u0080\u009D by Ann Graham Walker"@en . ""@en . "https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/prism/items/1.0135390/source.json"@en . "78 Pages"@en . "application/pdf"@en . " PRISM international\n45:2\nContemporary Writing from Canada and Around the World\ni\n*>\nmmmm PRISM international\n2006 PRISM international\nLiterary Nonfiction Contest\nGrand Prize-$1,500\nPatrick Tobin\n\"Reunion\"\nRunner-Up\nJoelene Heathcote\n\"Sleeping with Eyes Wide Open\"\nJudge\nDeborah Campbell\nContest Manager\nEmily Southwood\nReaders\nEmilie Allen\nLinda Besner\nJulie Okot Bitek\nChelsea Bolan\nDave Deveau\nLaura Fee\nTerry Miles\nMichael John Wheeler PRISM international\nFiction Editor\nBen Hart\nPoetry Editor\nBren Simmers\nExecutive Editors\nCarla Elm Clement\nRegan Taylor\nAssociate Editors\nJamella Hagen\nKellee Ngan\nClaire Tacon\nSheryda Warrener\nAdvisory Editor\nRhea Tregebov\nProduction Manager\nJennifer Herbison\nEditorial Board\nChelsea Bolan\nZoya Harris\nEmily Southwood\nRob Weston PRISM international, a magazine of contemporary writing, is published four\ntimes a year by the Creative Writing Program at the University of British\nColumbia, Buchanan E-462, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1. Microfilm editions are available from University Microfilms Inc., Ann Arbor,\nMI, and reprints from the Kraus Reprint Corporation, New York, NY. The\nmagazine is listed by the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index.\nE-mail: prism@interchange.ubc.ca / Website: prism.arts.ubc.ca\nContents Copyright \u00C2\u00A9 2007 PRISM international for the authors.\nCover Illustration: La Reina del Mar, by Natalie Onuska.\nSubscription Rates: One-year individual $25.00; two-year individual $38;\nlibrary and institution one-year $32; two-year $45. Sample copy by mail is\n$10. U.S. & international subscribers, please pay in U.S. dollars. Please\nnote that U.S. POSTAL money orders are not accepted. Make cheques payable to: PRISM international. All prices include GST & shipping and handling.\nSubmission Guidelines: PRISM international purchases First North American Serial Rights for $40.00 per page for poetry and $20.00 per page for other\ngenres. Contributors receive a one-year subscription. PRISM also purchases\nlimited digital rights for selected work, for which it pays an additional $10.00\nper page. All manuscripts should be sent to the editors at the above address.\nManuscripts should be accompanied by a self-addressed envelope with Canadian stamps or International Reply Coupons. Manuscripts with insufficient return postage will be held for six months and then discarded.\nTranslations should be accompanied by a copy of the work(s) in the original\nlanguage. The advisory editor is not responsible for individual selections,\nbut for the magazine's overall mandate including continuity, quality, and\nbudgetary obligations.\nFor details on how to place an advertisement in PRISM international, please\ncontact our executive editors. PRISM occasionally exchanges subscriber lists\nwith other literary magazines; please contact us if you wish to be excluded\nfrom such exchanges.\nOur gratitude to Dean Nancy Gallini and the Dean of Arts Office at the University of British Columbia. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support\nof the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and\nthe Government of Canada, through the Publications Assistance Program\n(PAP), toward our mailing costs.\nPAP Registration No. 8867. January 2007. ISSN 0032.8790\nA\nBRITISH COLUMBIA &S9 Canada Council ConseildesArts\nARTS COUNCIL C\u00C2\u00B1> *\u00C2\u00BB'the Arts du Canada\nmtHJtfi i)k sappon of tte fti\nCanada Contents\nVolume 45, Number 2\nWinter 2007\n2006 PRISM international\nLiterary Nonfiction Contest\nJudge's Essay\nDeborah Campbell\nWhy Nonfiction Matters / 7\nWinning Entry\nPatrick Tbbin\nReunion / 9\nRunner-Up\nJoelene Heathcote\nSleeping with Eyes Wide Open / 22\nFiction\nTyrone Jaeger\nTrespassing / 43\nThe Petrified Forest / 45\nMy Wife in the Bath / 47\nChris Kuhn\nCrocodile Tears / 56\nPoetry\nHeather Sellers\nI Don't Remember Telling the Stepsons / 33 Michael Lista\nYayo to Yahweh / 35\nWeird Light/ 36\nMary Flanagan\n[Motion downward] / 37\nBarry Dempster\nPieces / 39\nNuno Judice\nThe Oil Crisis / 41\ntranslated from the Portugese by paulo da costa\nAriel Gordon\nFall hack: warming the engine / 48\nFallback: off leash / 51\nStan Rogal\nDoggy Style / 52\nDaniel Priest\nIn Defense of Love and the New Mexico Landscape / 53\nRobert Brazeau\nTelemarketing / 54\nKnute Skinner\nRinging the Number / 55\nStephanie Yorke\nSt. Margaret's Square / 68\nNadine Mclnnis\nEntertainment: lunatic's ball / 69\nMaureen Hynes\nThe Falls / 71\nTracy Hamon\nSpitting Images / 72\nSusan McCaslin\nAn Epigram for the Muses / 73\nAnn Graham Walker\nAnother Uneasy Spring / 74\nContributors / 76 Deborah Campbell\nWhy Nonfiction Matters\nCall it what you like. Creative nonfiction. Literary journalism.\nMemoir. Narrative nonfiction. New Journalism. Personal journalism. Life writing. Witness literature. What matters is that this\nkind of writing\u00E2\u0080\u0094rooted in reality, close to the bone because the writers have lived it\u00E2\u0080\u0094charts a course through the Sturm und Drang of the\ntimes in which we live, times unlike any human history has ever known.\nWhat matters is that these writers leave behind markings\u00E2\u0080\u0094and perhaps,\nif readers are lucky, a map\u00E2\u0080\u0094that limn the soul as it passes through the\nlabyrinth of what it means to be alive in these times, and to survive them.\nWe know they have survived because they write; their having lived the\nstory imparts a texture, a dimensionality, that neither imagination nor\nfacts alone can provide.\nThe winner of this year's nonfiction contest is a clear-eyed observer of\nthe perils of living. \"Reunion\" is an archetypal story\u00E2\u0080\u0094that of parent and\nchild, father and son\u00E2\u0080\u0094made new because it takes place in a particular\nplace and time: in this case en route to (and inside) the prison-industrial\ncomplex where the narrator's con-artist father resides. And it is a journey, a very specific journey (for all good writing is specific) to find out\nwhether love is sufficient, and to depict the scars on himself, his family,\nhis nation\u00E2\u0080\u0094scars as deep and profound as that of the teenaged boy, a\nfellow visitor to the prison, whose partially caved-in face looks like \"the\nhealed cavity of a terrible gunshot wound.\"\nIt is no small matter that the writer references Orwell, an early pioneer of narrative nonfiction (or whatever term you prefer) and the author of 1984, a prophetic novel they sometimes make you read in high\nschool that is one of the redeeming aspects of those adolescent years. It\nis no small matter that he recognizes, with the help of literature, his own\nappointment with Room 101, the place that holds what Orwell calls the\n\"worst thing in the world\" yet varies according to the individual and is,\nfor this writer, \"the childish notion that my dad will eventually turn his\nlife around.\"\nThat his story explores ancient themes of betrayal and redemption\nis not why it was chosen. It is his use of language, metaphor, and the\ngradual accretion of telling details\u00E2\u0080\u0094the sum of fears, grief, and unrelenting hope\u00E2\u0080\u0094that make this story new. The runner-up this year is another student of detail, of specifics, another voyager into the unknown\u00E2\u0080\u0094in her case an internal journey. The death\nof a young woman she knew, which becomes the story of so many other\ndeaths of so many other women, and the way her fears are magnified by\nhaving a child, form the basis of her subject matter. \"Sleeping with Eyes\nWide Open\" is another archetypal story\u00E2\u0080\u0094that of mother and child\u00E2\u0080\u0094illustrated through the traces, the handprints, of a death observed.\nThese stories leave us shaken, yet more alive. To write is to embark\non a journey into places others cannot, or will not, allow themselves to\ngo. It requires a special kind of courage to write at all, more so when the\nwriters must reveal themselves in all their frailty, their self-doubt, their\nhumanness. Yet we need them to go there and bring back a survival\nmanual, a field guide of what they have found in such inhospitable terrain. We need them to bear witness, and fashion from the muddy tracks\nleft by reality something meaningful and beautiful and new. Patrick Tobin\nReunion\nThere are some things you should know about Taft:\nIt used to sit on top of one of the largest oil deposits in California,\nbut that was then and this is now.\nIt was named Moron until the 1920s, when the town was nearly destroyed by fire. It was renamed Taft in honor of the former President,\nwho by then was serving on the Supreme Court.\nIt's small and it's dusty. It's surrounded by defunct oil derricks. It's\nbordered on the east by fields full of perplexingly green grapes.\nIt doesn't have a Starbucks.\nIt's dying a slow death.\nThere's a Big Kmart on the edge of town, the only store of its kind in the\narea. There's a Little Caesar's Pizza inside the Big Kmart that serves as a\nmeeting place for the retired and the unemployed.\nThere are eighteen bars in Taft, with names like Art's Corner and\nThe Oasis and Vi's. There are three Latino nightclubs that cater to the\nmigrant workers who pick the perplexingly green grapes.\nThere's a main drag called Kern Street. If you're not paying attention\nyou can drive from one end of Kern to other before you even know it.\nThe thing that keeps Taft afloat these days is the federal prison: a privatized, low-security facility run by a corporation out of Florida. Entire\nclans in Taft, from sons to mothers to grandfathers, work at the prison for\nabout ten dollars an hour.\nMost of the prisoners who end up at Taft were convicted on drug\ncharges and will serve double-digit sentences. Most of these prisoners\nare Mexican: upon their release they'll be sent to Texas, where I.N.S.\nofficials will drop them off at the border with nothing but the clothes on\ntheir backs.\nA few of the prisoners who end up at Taft are white-collar criminals.\nMy dad is one of them.\nThere are some things you should know about my dad:\nHe used to work for the I.R.S. He used to have a C.P.A. license. He\nused to be a partner in a tax firm on Maui that counted Mick Fleetwood as a client.\nHe's a dry alcoholic; he's bipolar; he's addicted to gambling.\nHe's blown through millions of dollars on expensive cars, homes in\nHawaii and Montana, and prettyjapanese women who don't speak English very well.\nHe weighs four hundred pounds. He only wears size 3X Aloha shirts.\nHe has a photographic memory. He knows how to charm people with\nfunny stories.\nHe devises elaborate schemes to screw people out of money. For one\nof these schemes, he told people he had a nephew, an executive at Microsoft, who was offering him stock at an amazing discount. He told\npeople all they had to do was wire him money and he would invest it for\nthem in this stock.\nHe knows most people will believe him if he promises a double return\non their money.\nBefore I could visit my dad at Taft Correctional Institution, I had to\nsend in a completed Visitor Information form for approval. The form I\nreceived, BP-S629.052, bore the telltale signs of Liquid Paper, and had\nthe coarse quality of a copy of a copy of a copy.\nQuestion number seven asked for my relationship to the inmate.\nQuestion number eight asked if I desired to visit him/her. Question\nnumber nine (\"Did you know this person prior to his/her current incarceration?\") spooked me, because it brought to mind that dark galaxy\nwhere women obsess over death-row inmates. As I signed and dated the\nform, I thought about the woman who married Richard Ramirez, the\nNight Stalker. I tried to remember her name and what she looked like,\nbut eventually her face merged with that of every mentally ill woman\nI've ever seen on TV talk shows.\nBy the time I mailed the form, Mrs. Ramirez had become heavy set,\nwith long, stringy hair parted in the middle. She had rabbit teeth and bad\nskin. She was known for her casseroles. Her shy smile could quickly curl\ninto a sneer.\nI imagined this Mrs. Ramirez cutting in front of me while I drove\nto Taft to visit my dad and I was surprised by how much I despised\nher\u00E2\u0080\u0094more for cutting in front of me, with her greedy air of celebrity entitlement, than for the fact that she married a disciple of Satan who had\nkilled thirteen people.\nThere was a paragraph on the form, right above the signature line, that\nsaid if I didn't answer the questions truthfully I was guilty of a federal offense, punishable by a fine of not more than $250,000, or imprisonment\nfor not more than five years, or both (see 18 U.S.C. \u00C2\u00A7 1001).\n10 Question number eight and the way I'd answered it troubled me: did\nI really desire to visit my dad? Since I hadn't had any contact with him\nduring the first two and a half years of his incarceration, Taft might question why I was visiting him now. Maybe they read the letter I sent him for\nhis last birthday\u00E2\u0080\u0094the one with the cautiously crafted sentences offering\nforgiveness\u00E2\u0080\u0094and they were able to decode my real feelings.\nI imagined someone at the prison, much like the evil mastermind\nO'Brien in 1984, reading through my letter before turning his attention\nto my Visitor Information form. I imagined O'Brien closing my file with\ndisdain.\n\"Who does this asshole think he's fooling?\" he would say to himself.\nO'Brien would say this because he'd know the truth: no matter how\nmuch I try to forgive my dad, I can't.\nI still hate him for the way he destroyed our family in 1983, when he\nwas arrested for fraud two weeks before my high school graduation. I\nstill hate him for the way everything we owned was seized, my mom and\nyounger brother Tim fleeing like refugees to her parents in Montana.\nI still hate him for that summer before I went to college, when I had\nto get him back on his feet and convince him, on a daily basis, not to kill\nhimself.\nI still hate him for all the shit he put us through: the alcoholism, the\nbipolar disorder he doesn't treat, the gambling addiction. I still hate him\nbecause he used my brother's murdered wife for one of his schemes. I\nstill hate him because he continued to defraud people right up until he\nwas sentenced to Taft in 2003 even though he swore to me he'd changed\nhis ways.\nO'Brien somehow would know all this and yet he would approve my\nform. Maybe he'd know I still thought about my dad every day, even\nthough I tried to forget about him. Maybe O'Brien would approve my\nform because he'd figured out that I'm weak and easily manipulated\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nmy Room 101 is the childish notion that my dad will eventually turn his\nlife around.\nMaybe O'Brien would be in his office\u00E2\u0080\u0094a motivational poster with a\nbald eagle and the wisdom of Sun Tzu tacked to his wall\u00E2\u0080\u0094waiting for the\nmoment when he could finally harness the cage to my face.\nI decided to drive from Long Beach to Taft the night before I visited my\ndad. Visitor registration started promptly at 7:30 in the morning and, as\nanyone who has ever employed me can verify, I'm not exactly a greet-\nthe-dawn-with-a-smile kind of person. I found a cheap motel on the internet called, inexplicably, The Holland Inn and Suites. I expected a\ngiant windmill, but the photo showed a converted 20's style apartment\nbuilding. It reminded me of a women's residential hotel. I pictured my-\n11 self making taffy with young ladies in curlers, gossiping about the typing\npool, and I felt a whole lot better.\nAccommodations arranged, I packed a duffel bag with fresh underwear and a clean shirt. I made sure the cat had food and water. I printed\nout Mapquest directions from my home in Long Beach to The Holland\nInn and Suites.\nOn the surface, one would think I was getting ready for a completely\nrun-of-the-mill road trip\u00E2\u0080\u0094particularly if one ignored the way my head\nhummed an endless loop of self-doubt and anxiety.\nOn the road to Taft, I tried to find a way to process the information I'd\ndiscovered on www.prisontalk.com. Prior to visiting the website, I'd read\nthrough the U.S. Bureau of Prison Visitor Guidelines and felt confident\nthat I understood the rules: no khakis, no white T-shirts, no provocative\nattire, no gang-related accessories, no cellphones, no wallets or purses or\nmoney. Nothing but my car keys and a photo ID. Okay. Got it.\nI still felt like I didn't know what to expect during the actual visit, the\nphysical act of communicating with my dad within a prison setting. I\nwent to www.prisontalk.com because my concept of prison visits came\nmostly from the movies shown on Lifetime. For example, was I going to\nuse an old-fashioned two-way phone to talk with my dad, staring at him\nthrough a thick Plexiglas window? Would there come a moment when\nmy dad would break down sobbing and I'd hold my hand up to the glass\nin a poignant gesture of comfort?\nI didn't find the answers I was seeking. What I found instead was a\ndiscussion about the recently instituted rule against inmates having pornography. An ex-con with the screen name Retired-2 wrote:\nThere is a lot of sex going on in prison. Many guys cell up with their lovers.\nI never used porn for masturbation in the joint, my imagination was much\nbetter. In the county we had what we called a \"Jack Shack\" which was a\nshower that we had plastered the walls & curtain with porn pictures. It\nwas nice to get a Playboy in the joint because it had great articles in it,\nLOL.\nLaughing out loud, indeed. Now I had an image of my dad \"celling\nup\" forever burned into my head. I wasn't nervous that he might actually discuss anything of a sexual nature during our visit\u00E2\u0080\u0094his complete\nsilence on the topic during my adolescence being a good indicator\u00E2\u0080\u0094but\nI worried that he might drop clues that I wouldn't be able to ignore. He\nmight pull up his sleeve to show me a brand-new tattoo, his flexing bicep\npaying homage to someone named Ernesto.\n\"Can you believe it?\" he might say with a giggle. \"I think I'm in love.\"\n12 My mouth would drop open, and the worst thing would be that my\nreflection in the Plexiglas would look like I was about to give someone a\nblowjob.\nI had trouble finding The Holland Inn and Suites because MapQuest directed me through a residential area with no streetlamps. I drove around\nlost, my headlights revealing houses with darkened windows, the yards\nfilled with all manner of broken-down recreation vehicles. Every turn\nseemed to bring me back to where I'd already been: a Mdbius strip as\ndesigned by Richard Ford.\nI started to panic. It wasn't just the lack of streetlamps that made me\nuneasy\u00E2\u0080\u0094when I was little I was often scared at our cabin near Glacier\nPark, where, in the middle of the night, your entire body dissolved into\nan inky, black abyss. What bothered me most about this particular\nneighbourhood was its total lack of human activity. It wasn't even eight\no'clock. The eerie silence reminded me of horror movies where people\nhave to hide indoors after dark or the Horrible Monster will get them.\nWhat precisely was the Monster, though?\nSomeone at work advised me I should be careful in Taft because I'm\ngay and the town is home to one of the largest groups of white supremacists in the country. I appreciated my co-worker's advice, as I certainly\nwasn't in the mood to die at the hands of fat, blonde men wearing Dok-\nken T-shirts.\nThe skinheads, however, didn't terrify me.\nWhat actually terrified me was the way my visit had always been\nweeks away\u00E2\u0080\u0094I'd go into work each day and look at my Outlook calendar and think I've got plenty of time before I see him. The future, once so\nsafely in the distance, was making its entrance into the here and now,\nlike a grotesque actor taking the stage and sucking up every last molecule\nof oxygen from the theatre.\nI was really going to see my dad for the first time in nearly three years.\nEverything was happening too fast.\nI parked my car behind a horse trailer to wait for my panic to subside. I cranked up the volume and played the prelude from Tristan und\nIsolde twice in a row. A woman inside one of the houses peered at me\nwith concern from behind parted drapes\u00E2\u0080\u0094you'd think playing Wagner\nin skinhead country would have earned me points.\nIt's too bad I noticed her, because I felt compelled to give her a look\nin return that said, as politely as possible, Fuck off.\nThe last conversation I'd had with my dad was in February 2003, the\nday before he'd been sentenced to prison. He'd told me he'd just been\ndiagnosed with congestive heart failure\u00E2\u0080\u0094a condition that would\n13 eventually kill him.\n\"We'll get a second opinion,\" I said, trying to remain strong and upbeat.\n\"I don't know,\" he said. \"I'm tired of all this medical bullshit.\"\nThe way he paused after the word tired suggested the nuanced timing of a world-class conductor. I recalled all the bogus suicide threats\nthroughout the years.\n\"I promise, everything will be okay,\" I said.\nI'm not terribly proud of what I said next. Not only did I tell him we'd\nfind a doctor who could cure him, I predicted he would find leniency at\nthe hands of the federal judge.\n\"Maybe I'm just being naive,\" I said, \"but I think Libby will convince\nthem you shouldn't go to prison.\"\nI tried my hardest to sound like I had confidence in my dad's psychologist, but it was nearly impossible. Libby had the nettlesome earnestness\nof a person who still believed, with an almost pre-modern faith, that she\ncould save the world. Over the past five months, I'd paid her several\nthousand dollars to provide therapy for my dad, as well put together a\nwritten petition to the court based on his mental health history.\n\"I don't know what I'd do without her,\" my dad said.\n\"Hmmm,\" I replied.\nI recalled the one session I'd attended with my dad, during which\nLibby had cried after my dad had shown her pictures of my two year old\nniece\u00E2\u0080\u0094I'd given them to him with the blessing of my brother Tim, even\nthough they weren't talking. Libby's tears over my dad's tears had struck\nme as odd but essentially harmless until I'd had time to think about it\nlater. I'd become troubled and called my brother.\n\"She cried?\" Tim said. \"You sure she wasn't faking it to make him feel\nimportant?\"\n\"No, she was definitely crying.\"\n\"Like how? Weeping?\"\n\"No. I'd describe it as her eyes welling up with the tears of happiness.\"\n\"Jesus. That's fucked up.\"\n\"I'm trying to look at the bright side,\" I said. \"Maybe she'll cry in the\ncourtroom and that will impress the judge.\"\nUnfortunately, Libby didn't get the chance to impress anybody. The\nday after my last conversation with him, I received an urgent email from\nLibby informing me that the judge had decided to throw the book at my\ndad. Apparently one of his victims had driven all the way from southern\nWyoming to give, as Libby put it, \"very compelling testimony against\nyour father.\"\nI spent that night crying for my dad. I pictured him in jail, with his\n14 congestive heart failure and manic depression, all alone with no way to\ncontact me. Because they wouldn't let me talk to him, I sent a letter telling him I'd find an attorney to appeal the decision. I told him I loved\nhim very much.\nIt was less than a week before I started getting emails from some of\nhis friends and associates. They wanted to know why they hadn't heard\nfrom him\u00E2\u0080\u0094apparently, he hadn't mentioned anything about his pending\nlegal problems. I stalled as long as I could, but eventually I had to tell the\ntruth or start lying. I called Pete, one of his business contacts in southern\nCalifornia.\n\"So tell me this,\" Pete said, after I told him what was happening. \"Are\nyou guys related to the Tobin at Microsoft?\"\nMy confusion lasted only a moment. \"Did you give my dad money?\"\nI decided there was almost nothing worse than the awful silence of a\nman realizing he'd been taken.\n\"Twenty thousand dollars,\" he finally said.\nFor that kind of money, Pete deserved the whole truth.\n\"There are some things you should know about my dad,\" I said.\nWhile I was talking, it seemed to me like I was describing a dead\nperson: everything about my dad had suddenly become set in the past\ntense.\n\"He sounds fucked up,\" Pete said when I finished.\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"He was.\"\nI was given the handicap accessible room at The Holland Suites and\nInn. The young man who checked me in didn't tell me, so I spent the\nfirst hour of my stay experiencing a mild form of cognitive dissonance. It\nwasn't until I saw the wide, tubless shower that I finally understood what\nhad been bothering me: namely the enormous distance between every\npiece of furniture.\nGood, I thought, I'm not shrinking.\nI stood in front of the mirror in the cavernous bedroom, dwarfed\nby my surroundings, and practiced the smile I was going to use in the\nmorning.\nI can't remember now exactly what I wrote in the letter I'd sent my dad\nfor his birthday, the one where I forgave him. I'm sure I'd been sanctimonious: it's easy to forgive when you have an absolute moral superiority over the forgiven.\nIn his letter back to me, my dad had written that there was nothing\nhe could say that would make anything better\u00E2\u0080\u0094in fact, to say anything\nwould make it seem like he was trying to justify himself. All he could do\nwas express his deep regret that he'd hurt me.\n15 It wasn't precisely what I'd wanted. Tear-stained pages that paid tribute to the tears of Libby would have been a nice touch. A vow to serve\nthe poor in Calcutta after his release would have been even better.\nI put his typed letter away and tried to gauge my feelings. I expected\nto find fresh, blister-inducing rage, but instead, I found only relief that he\nwas still alive.\nThis wasn't the first time I'd felt this way. Sometimes I used the online\nInmate Locator to find out where my dad was. He'd been sent to Oklahoma City right after the hearing, where all federal prisoners go before\nthey're assigned to their permanent facilities. It was strange to see my\ndad reduced to the most basic information: his name, his racial identity,\nhis ID number, his age, his expected release date, his location. An entire\nlife could be distilled into a single line of words and numbers. It may\nsound heartless, but this distillation of my dad made me feel better.\nOne time I'd used the Inmate Locator and it hadn't been able to return a match for my dad. I'd been convinced he was dead. I'd pictured\na guard standing over my dad's supine body and prodding him with a\nbilly club.\n\"Get up Tobin,\" the guard said. \"Come on, enough with your games.\"\nI tried different queries with the search function, but nothing\nworked:\nSorry. No inmate namedjohn Tobin.\nSorry. No inmate namedjohn Tobin, sex male.\nSorry. No inmate named J Tobin.\nI decided to include his middle name, the name my parents chose\nto give me after I was born. I typed 'John Patrick Tobin\" and my dad's\ninformation popped up.\nHe was still alive and still at Taft.\nI remained in front of my monitor for what seemed like hours, acting\nas if I'd been injected with a powerful neurotoxin, one that immobilized\nevery muscle except my brain.\nI left the results page up on my computer for the rest of the day,\ngripped by a superstitious notion that I would somehow annihilate my\ndad if I closed it.\nThere are some things you should know about prison life that I learned\nthrough my dad's letters:\nThe economic system is based on two things: the money an inmate\nearns from his job assignment, and the money sent to an inmate by his\nfriends and family. These two sources of income are credited to an account, through which the inmate can buy food and toiletries at the commissary, as well as books of stamps.\nThe books of stamps serve an important function in addition to post-\n16 age: they are the legal tender used between the inmates. Because the\nvalue of a book of stamps is not a round number, everyone has agreed\nthat they represent six dollars.\nThe inmate population tends to segregate along racial lines, and each\nseparate group has its own TV room. The whites tend to watch sporting\nevents and Fox News. The blacks tend to watch sporting events and BET\n(Black Entertainment Television). The Latinos tend to watch soccer and\nUnivision (the Spanish language network).\nThe Mexicans buy junk food from the commissary and make delicious meals using only the microwaves in the common living areas.\nThey use crushed Fritos and lunch meat to make tamales. They use yellow mustard and grape jelly to make a decent teriyaki sauce.\nThe prison doesn't allow inmates to use weights or exercise excessively to pump up their muscles. The inmates get around this rule by\nmaking barbells out of plastic bags filled with old magazines attached to\nbroom handles.\nThe tailor who was busted for tax fraud can make a beautiful duffel\nbag out of a prison-issued jacket for five books of stamps.\nThe inmate who delivers the mail knows everything that's happening\nat the prison. Information from this inmate is free to his friends, but can\ncost anywhere from two to ten books of stamps for inmates he dislikes.\nThe inmates bet on everything. They bet on sports events. They bet\non who can have the shortest weekly meeting with his counsellor. They\nbet on who will win the annual art contest. The system usually runs without incident, but one time a college football game ended in a tie and the\nresulting chaos lasted for days as hundreds of books of stamps waited in\nlimbo.\nThe inmate art contest in 2005 had been won by a man who, because of\nhis age, is going to die in prison before he's finished serving his sentence.\nHis pencil drawing had been based on a photo of my niece.\nAfter the contest my dad sent it to me as a gift\u00E2\u0080\u0094he didn't tell me,\nbut I'm pretty sure he paid at least three books of stamps for it. At first I\nwasn't impressed\u00E2\u0080\u0094it didn't look anything like my niece\u00E2\u0080\u0094but I've grown\nto appreciate the work's subtle artistry. There's something haunting\nabout the delicate lines, the way they look like the scribbles of someone\nstruggling to capture the details of a pleasant dream, painfully aware that\nthe details have already been forgotten.\nTaft Correctional Institution sits in the middle of an abandoned oil field\nabout two miles east of town. Nothing grows in this particular valley, not\neven weeds. Because the soil is full of gypsum, you're confronted by a\nblinding, white moonscape in every direction.\n17 The prison's physical address is 3300 Cadet Road. There doesn't\nseem to be a raison d'etre for the name beyond creating the illusion of\norder. The 3300 is equally misleading, because it suggests there are other\naddresses along Cadet Road, even though it's obvious the prison is the\nonly thing out there.\nTCI is a compound of one-story buildings separated by fifteen-foot\nhigh fences. Along the tops of the fences runs an endless Slinky of razor\nwire\u00E2\u0080\u0094in the right light, the razor wire flashes like burning magnesium.\nEvery surface of the facilities is painted a dull, totalitarian white.\nAs I drove along Cadet Road, the blinding white moonscape and the\nflashing razor wire began to hurt my eyes. I squinted at several passing\nsigns, each one covered with text written in a sans-serif font that is best\ndescribed as Post-9/11 Hysteria. The gist of the signs: Don't Pick Up\nHitchhikers.\nI asked myself who, in this day and age, picks up hitchhikers, let alone\nhitchhikers out in the middle of a post-apocalyptic moonscape, the center of which contains a federal prison?\nThen I recalled the Night Stalker's wife. I pictured her driving a black\nHummer with a pentagram decal on the rear window. I pictured her racing along Cadet Road at a dangerous clip, passing me without signalling,\nthrowing up a lot of gypsum dust in her wake.\nI pictured a man in the distance, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, holding out his thumb. The Hummer came to an abrupt stop. Mrs. Ramirez\nthrew open the passenger-side door and a cloud of sulphurous smoke\nspilled out of the car.\n\"Need a lift, handsome?\" I pictured her saying, in a squeaky, abused-\nlittle-girl voice.\nThat's when I understood why there were several signs posted along\nCadet Road, each written in a font that can only be described as Post-\n9/1 1 Hysteria.\nThere are specific parking spaces for visitors, numbered one through a\nhundred and fifty. I was told to wait in my car: the guards would eventually come outside with forms that needed to be filled out.\nI sat in my car and checked out the other visitors. All of them were\nyoung women, each dressed to kill: silk suits, designer sunglasses, expensive highlights. One of them sat in her late-model SUV and talked\non her cellphone in rapid Spanish; from the way she kept repeating herself, she seemed close to having a nervous breakdown. There were two\nyoung boys in the backseat who wore brand new suits and matching\nclip-on ties.\nI wondered who was on the other end of her call. A demanding boss?\nSomeone who was supposed to have joined her? She opened a box of\n18 crackers and handed them to her boys. When she finished her call she\nadjusted her hair in the rear-view mirror\u00E2\u0080\u0094that was how she dealt with\nher anxiety.\nThis was how I chose to deal with my anxiety: I filled out my paperwork with the same level of care I once devoted to college applications.\nIt suddenly became very important that I showed the staff I could follow\ndirections. I took my driver's licence out of my wallet. I emptied my\npockets of money. I turned off my cellphone. I put everything except my\nlicence in the glove compartment and locked it.\nI managed to distract myself, until I remembered that one of the\nforms authorized the prison to perform a drug scan. I didn't use illegal\ndrugs anymore, but I'd been a regular user of Nicorette gum for almost\nthree years. I was convinced the Nicorette in my mouth was going to set\noff alarms, so I threw the gum out the window feeling like I'd adverted a\ncrisis, until I realized my fingers were now tainted.\nThe woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown adjusted her hair\nagain. I tried using her anti-anxiety technique, but the only thing it accomplished was to spread the nicotine evenly throughout my hair.\nWhile the guards led us into the reception area\u00E2\u0080\u0094how interesting that\nwe voluntarily walked single file, almost like a chain gang\u00E2\u0080\u0094I noticed\nthat several of the visitors carried plastic baggies filled with change. The\ncoins confused me, since the guidelines clearly stated that money wasn't\nallowed inside.\nThe young receptionist ignored us when we shuffled past her. She was\ntoo busy flirting with a FedEx deliveryman, telling him how drunk she'd\nbeen at a party the night before. Her makeup was alarmingly heavy\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nstencilled eyebrows and thick foundation\u00E2\u0080\u0094like she'd prepared herself\nfor the unexpected appearance of a glamour photographer.\nI wanted to tell the young receptionist that where I came from, her\nkind of makeup was only used by burn victims and drag queens, but I\ndidn't. I wanted someone to praise the way I'd filled out my forms, but\nno one noticed. I desperately wanted a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke, but\nI didn't have any money for the overpriced vending machines.\nThose fucking baggies filled with change were starting to bug me,\nalmost as much as the ringing phones, their piercing cries ignored by the\nyoung receptionist who was busy trying to get laid.\nI made it through the drug scanner without incident. A guard stamped\nmy hand with an ID that glowed neon yellow under an ultraviolet light.\nI showed my stamped hand and driver's licence at two different checkpoints before I was finally directed toward a small building, outside of\nwhich a stocky guard waved at me. I walked toward him along a wide\n19 sidewalk, completely exposed on all sides, feeling like I was about to be\nstruck by a sniper's bullet.\nI checked into the visitors' room. A guard placed my driver's licence\ninside an accordion folder and asked if I wanted to sit outside. I went\nto my assigned picnic table, where two cheap, plastic chairs faced each\nother. I sat down and wondered if it was too cold outside for my dad. I\nwondered if the chair would hold under my dad's weight.\nThe other visitors, however, didn't sit at their tables. They engaged in\na flurry of activity that seemed ritualistic. Some of them used moist tow-\nelettes to clean off their tables. Some of them checked out playing cards\nand backgammon sets from the guards' station. Some of them went to an\nadjacent room where there were vending machines and microwaves.\nNow I understood the purpose of the bags filled with change. My\nstomach grumbled, and I silently cursed myself for being so typically\nill-informed.\nThe inmates started coming into the visitors' building through a side\ndoor, one by one, strutting glamourously like movie stars appearing on\nThe Tonight Show. The women's faces lit up, one after another, as their\nmen strutted through the door. The way the women jumped up and\ndown, arms waving, reminded me of a game show: Miguel Flores, come on\ndown, you 're the next contestant on Reunion!\nI kept anticipating my dad would be the next inmate to arrive, but he\ndidn't appear. While I waited for him, another group of visitors showed\nup. I watched a nearby woman bring her husband a freshly nuked bur-\nrito and a bottle of Pepsi. She didn't fix anything for herself\u00E2\u0080\u0094she just\nwatched him eat, like she was scanning the image to her brain so she\ncould savour it after she left.\nA young woman came outside with a teenage boy whose face was\ncompletely caved in on the right side\u00E2\u0080\u0094it looked like the healed cavity of\na terrible gunshot wound. The boy was dressed in a floral print shirt and\nnice pants, and he squirmed with excitement. I tried not to stare at him,\nbut it was impossible, mainly because of his innocent zeal. The young\nwoman returned with sodas and bags of chips. The teenage boy carefully arranged a bottle of Coke and a bag of Doritos next to him, before\npulling out a handkerchief to wipe off the adjacent seat.\nA short, thin inmate, his hair slicked back into a moist black tongue,\nran outside and lifted the teenage boy with a shout of joy. The trio spoke\nSpanish, but between the inmate and the boy it seemed like words were\nalmost unnecessary. The inmate sat down and let the boy rest his head\nagainst his shoulder. Every once in awhile, the inmate would stroke\nthe boy's face\u00E2\u0080\u0094his entire face\u00E2\u0080\u0094with a gentle caress. Neither of them\nwas self-conscious about these intimate displays of affection. Not in the\nleast.\n20 I tried to figure out the relationship between the young woman, the\ninmate, and the teenage boy. It seemed most likely they were siblings.\nI wanted to figure out what had happened to the boy's face. Had his\nbrother's criminal activities been responsible? Had the boy found his\nbrother's gun and played with it, accidentally shooting himself?\nIt was obvious to me that in spite of the past, the brothers completely\naccepted the reality of the present: one was in prison, the other disfigured for life. The only thing that mattered now was that they loved each\nother.\nWould I ever be able to feel that way towards my dad?\nOut of the corner of my eye I saw my dad come outside. I stood up\nand we hugged. He mumbled into my bad ear how glad he was to see\nme. I kissed him on his cheek.\nI put my hand on his shoulder and told him I was glad to see him\ntoo\u00E2\u0080\u0094and I meant it. I gestured toward our dirty picnic table and cheap,\nplastic chairs, and asked if he'd rather sit inside.\n\"No,\" he said. \"This is perfect.\"\n\"I didn't bring any change for food,\" I said. \"I'm sorry I didn't\nknow.\"\nMy dad's eyes welled up, and they weren't fake tears of happiness.\n\"Like I said, babe, this is perfect just the way it is.\"\n21 Joelene Heathcote\nSleeping with Eyes Wide Open\nSpend any time in a small town and you'll know what I mean. There\nis a current of restless energy that runs beneath it, a sense of inertia\nwhereby living violently is sometimes the only analgesic. Places\nand names are remembered by locals according to what happened to\nwhom, in the span of a lifetime. You leave these towns. Every sensible\nperson you know does because to stay is to smoulder. Most of the people\nwho stay let their lives close in on them, each work day, each weekend\na facsimile of the one before and their regrets start to gnaw at them, like\ndogs on tethered ropes.\nWhen the story is still fresh, I'm in my mid-twenties. No children,\nbut of course I have a lover. In those days that's never a problem. A\nnumber of years go by but not a week passes I don't think about what\nhappened. Something in the paper or on television is usually the trigger:\nanother story where a woman goes to work, or on supposed vacation but\npolice find her abandoned car at the (insert: park, gas station, baseball\ndiamond), and her distraught/estranged (boyfriend/husband/common-\nlaw) appears on the six o'clock news begging anyone with information\nto come forward.\nI stare at the television footage of this woman's level entry plain box\nhouse, over-grown lawn, pulled blinds. It is a replica of my house, circa\n1940, but it's facing the wrong direction. I nod my head, knowing the exact layout. The news crew does a panoramic to include the neighbours'\nhouses, police tape marking the area they're now calling a crime scene.\nWhy is it, I wonder, that next door neighbours are never home when the\nmedia show up; nobody ever sees or hears anything. What the hell good\nare they anyway?\nThe reporter looks Chinese Canadian. She's talking live to the anchorman in the newsroom. \"Now Bill,\" she says, like she's just received\ngroundbreaking information via live satellite feed. \"The couple had\nlived together for four years but separated in August of this year.\" The\nreporter is wearing a fur trimmed North Face jacket and a manufactured\nfrown. She plugs one ear to keep out the cold wind. \"The agent we've\nbeen talking to in this investigation has discovered the ex-husband has\n22 three outstanding warrants for breach of conditions, so....\" The wind\nblows her hair across her face. \"We'll keep you up to date as the investigation unfolds.\"\nI'm glad when the camera cuts out and I can finally shut the TV off.\nI always hope the woman in question has simply changed her plans or\nbooked into a motel room beside a pool in the middle of nowhere; I\nhope, for her sake, she is running toward someone or something.\nI follow the papers, the evening news for the next few days, waiting\nfor the distraught husband to appear so beside himself he can't even look\nat the media. This guy is a cliche. He's the one pinching the bridge of\nhis nose, shaking his head in disbelief. Squeaks and gasps of mourning\nescape him. I always watch the husband's face closely for signs he knows\nmore than he's letting on, which he nearly always does. Some of the time\nI fall for it though; I think, god, this guy is for real. But in this specific\ncase he doesn't show up; this time he's nowhere to be seen and I can still\ndisassociate myself because I don't have kids, because, unlike the missing woman, I'm non-native. I can pretend it has nothing to do with me,\nso I do, but I can't get the house out of my mind.\nThe house was dark and the blinds were shut\u00E2\u0080\u0094that's what Constable\nDonald Erb remembers seeing. He had turned off his siren a block away,\nbut left the disco lights revolving in everyone's bedroom. Sidney is a\nquiet town, for the most part, and locals aren't used to this kind of thing.\nConstable Erb was aware of that. He parked the car on the road outside\nthe house and made some notes on a clipboard while the dispatch radio squawked and hissed. The interior of the car was still warm and he\nused his cellphone to call inside the house. Electric blue light lit up the\npoliceman's face as he listened to the ring. Anyone looking on from the\ndark shadows of January morning would have guessed the look on his\nface was both disappointment and fear. No one answered. After ringing\nthe door bell several times, he called for back-up. When the other cop arrived they walked around the house, one hand on their guns, just in case,\nthe other scanning the yard with flashlights. They found a shed with the\ndoor open and they shone their lights inside. There were a lot of boxes\npiled up and broken garden equipment\u00E2\u0080\u0094what most people would call\njunk. The one thing that stuck out in Constable Erb's mind was a child's\nstroller. A few minutes later they had made their way around to the back\nyard where they found the door off the porch was unlocked.\nQ Unlocked? Did you make any announcement? The Crown lawyer\nasked him.\n23 A Yes we did. We said, 'It's the police. Is anyone home?'\nThe first room off the porch was an ordinary kitchen with little Christmas lights strung around the inside of the window. Condensation was\nrunning down the glass and one of the policemen commented on how\nwarm it was but neither of them considered taking off their heavy winter\ncoats.\nQ What else did you notice?\nA Well, before I entered the house I noticed what appeared to be a\nhand print on the lower portion of one of the windows.\nQ Was the print on the inside, or outside of the glass, sir?\nA I believe it was on the outside of the window.\nOn the wall by the door a set of coat hooks choked under the weight\nof jackets. Children's toys were scattered across the linoleum, some paper and crayons as well. There was a highchair in the middle of the\nkitchen and Constable Erb stepped around it, shone his flashlight on a\nhalf-open drawer. The counter above it was littered with Band-Aid wrappers and what appeared to be bloody gauze. From there the two police\nmen walked into the living room and that's when Constable Erb saw\nthere was a closed door at the end of the hall just off the bathroom.\nQ Pardon me, Constable. Did you investigate the bathroom?\nA Yes. We found what appeared to be a lot more blood and Band-\nAids.\n1 play this scene over in my head until it becomes an obsession. I dream\nabout it: I dream I'm the cop, or the child, or the mother. I imagine the\nhand print on the living room window was made by a neighbour who\nhappened to be home, who actually heard the struggle inside and came\nto see if they could help. I imagine the hand print belongs to a child; that\nI'm actually in this long before the cop car arrives. It's exactly like my\nhouse after all.\nFast forward five years and, surprise to me, I have a kid now too and\nfor the first two weeks of his life I lay awake at night worrying what the\n24 world has in store for him.\nNow he's eight months old and his teeth are cutting through his gums\nlike a switchblade in a coat pocket. He wakes in the middle of the night,\nscreaming like someone is cutting off his foot. I stumble through the\nthree a.m. darkness of our cluttered bedroom\u00E2\u0080\u0094tripping over laundry\nbaskets, baby toys, cats\u00E2\u0080\u0094searching blindly for the baby monitor whose\nvolume wakes my husband and makes him sigh and groan and roll over,\nand go back to sleep. The house we rent is exactly like the one from the\nnews, a tiny rancher, but nights like these the hallway seems to go on\nforever, the mirror at the end projecting an infinite number of hallways,\nan endless line of mothers running, half asleep, toward the sound of their\nscreaming babies. Tonight the room has a bit of chill and my son cowers,\nface down, in the corner of his crib as though he can squirm away from\nthe ache of bone rubbing through flesh. I pick him up and hold him close\nto my chest, kiss his eyes and brush the hair from his forehead because\nthat is all I can do.\nThis is my first child, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I know\nthis is a fact of life and that years from now his adult teeth will come, and\nthen in his twenties, his wisdom teeth, but by then his ability to process\nthis pain will be so much greater because the world will have toughened\nhim. Sarang Ee\u00E2\u0080\u0094love teeth the Koreans say. Not, as I imagined, because\nof the misery love can cause, but because this is the age we first believe\nin the possibility of it.\nCrown council calls Daniel Roy to the stand.\nDaniel rubs the short bristles of his hair as he takes a seat in the witness box. He is twenty-three years old, French Canadian, and a sub-lieutenant in the Canadian navy. He is shy, worried the questions he's going\nto be asked will be confusing and he'll say something wrong, or that the\nlawyer will twist his words and make him look bad. Daniel is terrified.\nHe stares at the black leather bible he's been asked to place his hand on.\nMaybe he wishes his parents had come, or some of his navy buddies, just\na familiar face at the back of the court, anyone. The room is insulated\nagainst sound. Yellow with fluorescent lighting, one bar flickers over the\ntable where the lawyer stands with a fist on his notes, the other in the\npocket of his grey slacks.\nDaniel grew up in a family that moved around a lot. His father was\nalso in the Navy. Danny lives in Victoria now. At last, a place he can call\nhome. Maybe it's because of this lifestyle he seems so sensitive\u00E2\u0080\u0094having\nbeen the natural man of the house when his father was away, having\nseen the trouble fathers can bring, or the loneliness it caused his mom.\nI sympathize with Danny. It has been a crazy year: his first time in love,\n25 his first time to court. And it's only the beginning of April.\nQ Now, English is not your first language is it Daniel?\nA No, sir, French.\nQ So you'll let me know if you don't understand something, right?\nThen let's get started. Briefly tell the court about yourself.\nA I recently obtained a degree in space science from Royal Roads\nMilitary College in Kingston, Ontario, and then I spent the last six\nmonths on HMCS Protecteur, serving in the Persian Gulf.\nDaniel scans the faces in the room but he knows no one and can't tell\nwhose side anyone's on. He stares down at his lap and rubs the palms of\nhis sweaty hands together.\nQ Oh, you seem a little nervous, Daniel. Are you alright?\nA Yes, sir.\nQ Okay. Tell His Lordship how you met Ms. Phoebe Mack.\nSomeone from the Defence bench coughs but Daniel doesn't look up.\nDaniel thinks about it. It's clear he's embarrassed, worried about what\nconclusions the court will make about him having met Phoebe through\nan internet dating service. Later at night, when the child had gone to\nsleep, Phoebe would pour herself a glass of something and sit down to\nchat with Danny. Usually they would tell each other what they'd done\nthat day. Sometimes they'd talk about what it would be like when they\nwere finally together. Before they'd ever even met Danny could make\nher lol\u00E2\u0080\u0094laugh out loud.\nA I met Ms. Mack in November on internet dating\u00E2\u0080\u0094internet dating\nservice.\nQ How does that work?\nA Umm. Single people who want to meet can go online and chat or\nsend each other emails.\nI know people who've tried this online dating and the stories never get\n26 any better. A person describes themselves as taller, slimmer, better looking, better educated, more socially adjusted than they really are. My\nadvice? Beware the born-again Christian, the recreational gambler, the\nnon-drinker. Beware the one who has, or hasn't, been to counselling\nor anger management; has just been in a long-term relationship; has\nnever had a girlfriend or boyfriend; is recently divorced. The picture\non screen is never the person you finally meet. It's a given. There are,\nhowever, certain occupations that don't really offer up a smorgasbord of\nattractive dating prospects, and I understand that. Daniel often worked\naway, and with a two year old child at home, Phoebe didn't get out much\neither. They talked about their families and work, where they'd grown\nup. They sent pictures of each other but in that month of November had\nnever spoken in person.\nQ Did you know then that she had a child?\nA Yes.\nQ What did she tell you about the child?\nA Ms. Mack told me she had a two year old son named Dylan and\nshe sent me a picture of the two of them.\nIn early December, at a hotel in downtown Victoria, Daniel finally met\nPhoebe. He must have been surprised she was as beautiful as the photos\nhe'd seen. She had explained in emails how routine each day had been\nfor her: up at six with the child, cuddling and cartoons, a soft boiled\negg and toast cut into little strips her son could dip in the yoke, a walk,\nplay group, lunch, errands, dinner, bath, book, bed. After that came the\nprocess of going room to room, dismantling each play area, putting toys\naway, picking up cups and clothes, blankets and books. The only variable was the day of the month when her ex-husband came to visit the\nboy.\nBeing with Daniel must have seemed like a movie\u00E2\u0080\u0094the danger of\nmeeting like that, the anticipation of intimacy. Maybe he was romantic\nand sensual, his life exciting. Genuinely interested in the things Phoebe\nsaid, Danny asked her about her family in Bella Bella, the history of\nher people, where she'd grown up. She had graduated from Ballenas\nSecondary twelve years earlier. I know because we went to the same\nhigh school. I was at the prom she went to with her deadbeat boyfriend,\nDelme. Phoebe was pretty in her tight white dress with puffed shoulders\nand wrist corsage. I saw her only a few times after that\u00E2\u0080\u0094at parties, in\n27 the bar with the same guy who ended up becoming her husband. She\nwas always sitting on a bar stool while he went lecherous. Some women\nlike bad boys and maybe that was the attraction, but I would've been\nembarrassed. Delme could work the charm when there was something\nhe wanted. But if he didn't get his way he was cruel.\nOne night at the Sandbar Pub I passed Delme coming in. Good looks,\nwell dressed, he never had a problem attracting women. Maybe an hour\npassed before he started working the crowd, trying to get something going. He had an edge to him like the wrong answer might cost you a fight,\nand Delme didn't like losing. Of course he singled me out. His leaning\nacross our table emptied it pretty quickly, save myself, and my boyfriend\nat the time.\n\"Get up and dance with me,\" he said. I said I didn't feel like it just\nyet, blaming the lack of booze. We'd been in a few electives together in\nhigh school but that had been a long time ago. In those days I rarely did\nany work anyway, mostly hung out in the auto shop talking to boys. He\nscanned the dance crowd like a boxer going down for the last time. \"So\nwhy didn't you ever want to fuck me?\" he asked and I laughed. That's\nwhen he grabbed the guy I'd come with and smashed his head against\nthe wall. \"Because you like fucking geeks like this?\" he said.\nQ At this point in your conversations, Daniel, did Ms. Mack intend\nto tell her ex-husband about you?\nA No, she had no intention of telling him about us. She was afraid\nfor my safety.\nQ And did you continue to call her after that?\nA No. She said she was getting more visits from Mr. Evans and she\nwas afraid he would answer her phone.\nQ But you continued to contact her by email and on the computer?\nA That's correct sir. She invited me to have dinner with her and some\nfriends on the\u00E2\u0080\u0094on that Wednesday.\nDaniel rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. The lawyer asked\nif there was anything else, other than her ex-husband, that concerned\nPhoebe about their relationship.\n\"Yes. She believed I was a little too young for her, sir.\" He offered\nthis confession to the court like it was something he had wanted to get\noff his chest. It was ridiculous and terribly unfortunate that she felt that\n28 way, and Daniel wanted to know if the court disapproved of their age\ndifference. He looked at the judge for the first time. \"She said I had a lot\nmore going for me than to get in a relationship with her.\" He didn't know\nanything about being a parent, he told them, but he thought Phoebe was\na great mom. At the beginning of December neither of them knew where\nthe relationship was going but they were running on adrenaline, they felt\ngood. They were electric.\nA lot of things come to mind when I think about Phoebe. It gets harder\nto imagine why she would've stuck by Delme for so long. I remember a\nhousewarming party. It was about seven in the evening and people stood\naround the kitchen filling their mouths with deli sushi and lime margari-\ntas; a bunch of women passed a joint around the living room. The music\nwas loud; no doubt the Beastie Boys in those days, and no one heard a\nthing until Delme kicked open the bathroom door. Clearly he had been\ninside, and the door swung on its hinges. Phoebe was bleeding from the\nwrist and mouth.\nQ I notice you're wearing a ring, Daniel. Where did it come from?\nA It came from\u00E2\u0080\u0094I got it when I graduated from Royal Military College, sir.\nQ Isn't it true that you were missing it for some time?\nA Yes\u00E2\u0080\u0094yes it is. I left it on the coffee table at Ms. Mack's house.\nQ Did she tell you whether she was planning to get back together\nwith her husband?\nA Yes, sir. She said she had no intention of that.\nAnd so, at twenty-three, Daniel had earned himself the title of sub-lieutenant, completed a university degree, and spent six months overseas.\nHis parents must have been very proud of their son. They raised a smart\nboy, a boy with respect and ambition; so why, they must wonder, did he\nnot ask this girl more questions about her life? How could their son\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nwhose life was regimented discipline, order, and detail\u00E2\u0080\u0094have left the\nring he'd worked so hard for at the house of a woman he knew so very\nlittle about.\nMost parents like to believe the stress is over when their children\n29 move out of the house; that they can finally have their lives back. I don't\nbelieve for one moment our lives ever belong to us again. We can't ever\ngo back. A number of friends dropped out of my life when they heard I\nwas pregnant because I couldn't go out smoking and drinking anymore.\nIt's been nineteen months since I've been to a party that didn't involve\nbabies and soft drinks. Nine months of no dates, no sex, no time, no\nwardrobe. For those of us who lose our identity in the process of becoming parents, the world is gracious in giving us new ones. No longer\nspontaneous, sexy, interesting, we are somehow elevated in other ways\nfor the sacrifices made. Of course I miss my old life, but I wouldn't trade\nthis motherhood thing for all the sleep in the world.\nThe night my son was born it had been exactly four years, maybe to\nthe hour, since Phoebe's ex-husband told her that if he couldn't have\nher, no one could. She must have known his determination. She'd been\nwith him for twelve years. She would have known him better than anyone.\nI stared at the clock on the wall, watching the black wand of the minute hand tick past the hour. No one could've prepared me for the pain\nof giving birth. At some point around eight p.m. the baby's heart dipped\nlow. His shoulders wedged between the bones of my pelvis, his head\nstuck in the birth canal. Roll on to your side, the doctor kept saying,\nthe baby is in trouble. I couldn't, I didn't know what I was doing in the\nfirst place and now I was exhausted. Soon there were five doctors in the\nroom (not exactly the homey image my free-spirited doula had painted).\nThe doctor, though patient, was tiring. I was in bad need of stitches and\nhe went down on one knee in the mess of blood, his hands shaking.\nIn the early morning hours of January 8th, at the house on Resthaven\nDrive, Constable Erb found the body of twenty-eight-year-old Phoebe\nlying between two beds, her face covered with a blanket, shirt pulled up\nto expose her belly. It's possible someone had tried to revive her. The\npoliceman went down on one knee. He whispered Dear God. Phoebe's\nface was badly bruised and swollen. He freed one hand from a glove so\nhe could wipe the sweat from his forehead. Then he called for an ambulance and sent his backup to secure the area. From where he stood,\nConstable Erb could see the living room: a blanket, a pair of pants with\nblood on them, a child's train set and a large kitchen knife. There was\nblood on the train and its tracks.\nA Shortly after that the ambulance arrived and the attendant took\nthe woman's right wrist. I think he was checking for a pulse.\n30 Q And what was his discovery?\nA She was dead, sir. I believe due to pressure on her carotid artery.\nQ In your opinion, Constable, what would've caused that?\nA A headlock would have done it, sir. We require special training to\nuse a hold like this on someone.\nHours earlier, a Canada Customs agent saw Phoebe's blue minivan\nmake a U-turn before reaching U.S. immigration. The agent approached\nthe driver's side of the van and shone a flashlight on the driver. The man\nhad cuts on his hands and arms. His two-year-old son was asleep in the\npassenger seat; maybe the radio was on for distraction. I wondered what\nwent through his head as drove that long strip of highway, moonlight\nsettled among the fields and trees. It was a cold night\u00E2\u0080\u0094too cold for a\nthin, torn shirt. Customs questioned him about the custody of the boy\nand RCMP arrested Delme for several outstanding warrants. A number\nof people I know would say Delme was a nice guy, but I know better.\nI'd seen him get crazy a number of times when he didn't get what he\nwanted. I had only seen him maybe six or seven times in twelve years,\nbut each time his temper was worse.\nQ Now Daniel, tell the court how you found the ring you're wearing\ntoday.\nA Phoebe emailed me to tell me she'd located the ring in the living\nroom and put it on her bedroom dresser so her son wouldn't get it\nin his mouth.\nQ So it stands to reason that anyone over two feet tall could have\nseen the ring sitting there?\nA Yes, sir.\nQ And how did you get the ring back?\nA I was given it back when\u00E2\u0080\u0094when an officer came to question me\nabout the death of Phoebe.\nQ Obviously you knew she was dead at that point.\nA Yes sir. I learned about it when I saw her face on the news.\n31 It was a cold January afternoon when my husband and I brought our\nbaby home from the hospital. He was almost seven pounds, with dark,\nwrinkled skin and black hair. For the first three months I slept with him\ncurled like a fiddlehead against my body. My husband went willingly to\nthe sofa or the next room, disappointed with the new arrangement, but\ngrateful for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Those first few weeks\nwe suffocated under an avalanche of new information, and advice from\nmasters of parenthood.\nThere have been moments in these last nine months that each of us\nhave felt we might just be losing our minds: the lack of time to ourselves,\nthe lack of money, the mess, the screeching third person in every conversation. We eat dinner so late at night we have to hold our heads up\nwith one hand. We crawl over piles of clothing into our unmade bed. A\npaper mobile of sheep floats from the light above the dresser, and we flip\nthrough the channels until one of us falls asleep.\nEvery little while it comes back though, whenever I'm cooking, or\nrocking the baby to sleep, I go back to the image of Phoebe's house. It's\ngone now; demo'd to make room for new townhouses. It was exactly\nlike mine, only the plans were switched and it faced the wrong direction. I think about how a house is supposed to be a safe place, a womb\nwe live in after we leave our mothers. Phoebe's son is six now and he\nwill have missed her on his last four birthdays. Four Christmases will\nhave passed without her. She was not there with him on his first day of\nschool and someone will likely have lied to him about the events of that\nnight; they would have had to. I wonder what things from that fight have\nstuck in the boy's mind, what ready stories he'll have when people ask\nhim where his mother has gone. I can't stop thinking about Daniel, how\nhe will carry this story with him for the rest of his life, his ring having\nwitnessed things, and no longer signifying what it was meant to. I go\nback to that hand print on the front window, just the height of a child, or\nsomeone older bending down; a person on the outside looking in.\n32 Heather Sellers\nI Don't Remember Telling\nthe Stepsons\nBut when we drive down Gondola Drive,\nmy father's street in Orlando, while\nI am trying to bend memory, shirts, yearning,\nstray conversations and these boys\ninto something that looks like, to the\nuntrained eye, anyway, a family\nthey say This is where you jumped\noff the roof bleeding and This is the yard\nwhere you left your father for dead and\nHere's where you sped with Todd Gele.\nYou made out with him over there.\nWe can't believe you spray painted\nthat guy's entire yellow Torino pink.\nMy new husband says, as we crawl\ndown Orange Blossom Trail\nThat's the Chi-chi's where you\nworked where everyone did cocaine.\nWhy can't your schoolwork be this\nthorough, guys? And I keep saying\nthis is all changed and I do not remember\ntelling you any of these things.\nI do not recall remembering the car,\nthe kiss, the father left for dead, that\nmotorcycle, my Orlando heart.\n33 In those days I was thinking about now,\nnot I'll marry a man with two boys,\na three for one special and raise them.\nThen it was jackpot, fry chicken, syllables of\nruin, it was possibly porn star baby\nwith shades of Actress, Saudi prince,\nDulcinea, Quiana, Candies and surf\nculture\u00E2\u0080\u0094I could see the sun rise on one\nbeach and set over the other, this made\nthe world seem endless and me possible.\nDid you ever get in trouble for anything?\nthe boys ask and the husband says\nTurn here? Tell me now or else.\n34 Michael Lista\nYayo to Yahweh\nyou with relapse terrors in a cot, DT's\nin Timmins, tope ghosts and March's halitosis,\nthe shallowwateroverroundedstone\nof voices in the corridor, diagnostic splash\npoint moving on your door, or can diazapam\nlift you from bed and head into the hall? four\nnights of this since you checked yourself\nin, bloated, sweaty-nosed, your soles snowing\non the foyer mat in stomps, the pull of toque\nfrom skull, cheeks a shock of frozen rose, the who?\nin your hollow voice as you spell your family name\nfor the obese receptionist, each successive letter\na deeper crevasse of regret, as if the part\nof you that needs salvation has no name\nat all, and this, your daddy's craggy moniker\nis but the chasm of your nomenclature's past,\nfrom which you ache to extricate yourself.\n35 Weird Light\nAt the end of what is necessary, I have come to a place where there is no road.\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094Iris Murdoch\nGravel mile from the county highway\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nfireflies are pin-head Christmas lights shorting in the gravel,\ntangled\u00E2\u0080\u0094or another night arranging itself at my pale ankles.\nAhead, in the pine cottage\nbehind the Virgin's garden, Sister Frances is sleeping\nwith a raccoon carcass yet again. Her Springer\nSpaniels dragged it screaming down this lane\nof shattered stone.\nWoke the empty house. Moved the tortured\nwalls to hide behind the papal portraits.\nGravel mile from the county highway\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nPolaris pounds upon the roof\nof the abandoned chicken coop. The Dipper looms\nto scoop. A harvest moon bangs blood-orange\nagainst her bedroom blinds: Old woman. Who art with fever\nhallowed be thy name\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nThe housefly on her bedside table, wringing\nits fly-hands, red-eyed and conspiring.\nThe horsefly ferrying her skin\nto the cloakroom, tabernacle dark.\nMoonlit mile from the county highway\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nbedsprings sing relief in a room with heavy shades.\nDraw the splendid curtain;\na weird light, always near, wants in.\n36 Mary Flanagan\n[Motion downward]\n1979, my brother jams the television;\nNASA men in doughy clothes,\nnewscasters somberly announce the sky\nas Skylab renounces orbit.\nThe space program's a big mistake, let me tell you.\nLook what they've done to Mr. Armstrong, the Ranger 9,\ncrashing headlong into pockmarked Alphonsus;\nall for a $10,000 prize\u00E2\u0080\u0094Skylab's falling!\nI know my conviction absurd.\nI know Skylab is, among scheming planets, small\u00E2\u0080\u0094\n75 metric ton panels, gaskets, burning microscopes;\nI know that I am destined to be brutally crushed,\non the swing, or while I play Yahtzee.\nI have trouble sleeping.\nI refuse to go outside. Skylab's\nimpending re-entry\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nthe nightly news fuels Copernican\ncertainty in the afterlife. I wear a\ntowel on my head and bride myself\nto Christ in my pajamas. I Saint Francis pray\nuntil I talk to animals. Cut homemade hosts\nfrom Wonder Bread\nand stuff them in my mouth.\n.. .weirdos pull up drunk, tourists, to glimpse\nmy bedroom: Birthplace of Skylab Disaster!\nThe Victim's Grieving Parents!\nSee The Hole! (Or maybe, it will take us all out,\njust like the lightning that struck my bedroom\nafter careful teenage construction\nof the Energy Pyramid.) Or She, Unclassified\nVictim of Space Trash, holds a press conference...\n37 I avoid open sky.\nLadders and sawhorses form mazepaths;\nI carry broomsticks to the bathroom,\nto the backseat (Skylab could aim freeway),\nkilling time for the second coming\nof the first space station.\n38 Barry Dempster\nPieces\nCome, stare at the scar on my left palm,\nit looks like a picket fence, all that\nlong-gone pain trimmed to something\nalmost pretty. And while you're here,\nnotice the squash of my knuckles,\nthe ropy tendons on the backs\nof my hands, the wispy blonde hairs\nthat breeze up and down my arms.\nSee me, goddamn it, I'm a miracle.\nToo intense? Too needy, too scared,\ntoo inconsequential, you name it.\nIf this is a love affair, I'm the entire\nstring section on a tear, catgut\nscreeching at a paper moon. If this\nis friendship, I'm something reed\nand spit, a musical splint\nkeeping cracked heart songs in tune.\nIf this is you, then it's definitely me.\nI'll never forget the afternoon you\nreached out and chose my wrist bone\nover all other body parts.\nFascinating protrusion, precious\nafterthought, a little apple motif\nto remind me how off-centre paradise\ncan be. I'd never been just a wrist\nbefore, exhilarating diminutive, a sudden\nwink of ruby in a king's busy crown.\n39 Divide me into pieces, hold me bit by bit.\nI may look like a wrinkled fist\nor a middle finger with a dent\nfrom squeezing a pen too tight,\nbut there are mysteries worth loving,\nlongings to be risked. Have you seen\nmy wing of ilium yet, or my medulla\noblongata? Keep staring, go beyond\nyourself, make me whole again.\n40 Nunojudice\ntranslated from the Portugese by paulo da casta\nThe Oil Crisis\nWe could count on our fingers the oil tankers\nalong the horizon line: exiting the other side of the earth to\nface the cape, whose reefs dare them. It was\nstill a time of cheap gasoline and of dances in\nthe club, carried on until after midnight\nin borrowed houses, in vast dance halls in low\nlights, to hide what was to be\nhidden. The oil tankers stopped, sometimes, in front\nof the beach, haunting with the weight of their presence anyone\nwho entered the water, and in the days to follow sand turned black,\nforcing us to mind the soles\nof sandals. The girls in the club, seated\nwaiting to be chosen, also haunted\nthe most timid boys; and the mothers, sitting on the chairs behind,\nprevented many advances, although their function\nwas to select those best suited\nfor future marriages, serious boys and with a future\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094although a future did not exist for anyone,\nfacing compulsory military service ahead and a guaranteed war. So,\nlooking at the oil tankers, there might be those who\ndreamed of climbing aboard, and departing to the other side\nof the world. But who would be capable of swimming so far and\nthen climbing the steel bow. Better clean\nthe tar soles with a bamboo stick, and run\nto the club where the dance had by now begun. And it was at night,\nin those borrowed houses, listening to slow music\non old records, that we could dance, without mothers\nchaperoning daughters nor daughters afraid of mothers. It was a time\nwhen oil tankers travelled slowly along the coastline,\nand we could count on our fingers\nhow many, except those stopping to\nclean out the bilge. One night, electricity was cut off\nduring the dance. I did not stop dancing\nbecause of that\u00E2\u0080\u0094and others would have done the same. The oil\n41 too was cut off a few months later, and the oil tankers\nstopped travelling by the cape. Although not even that interrupted\nthe club dances, the closing of the night in borrowed\nhouses, and the lights\u00E2\u0080\u0094now turned\noff\u00E2\u0080\u0094so the dance could continue,\nin the dark.\n42 Tyronejaeger\nTrespassing\nIt was a Sunday drive, on a Tuesday. The mountains were overgrown\nwith green. She steered the winding roads with a sure hand, wearing a ring I hadn't given her. We hiked a lake nestled above a ghost\ntown. On the roof of a falling-down saloon, someone had spray-painted,\nthe BIBLE isLaW. She said she sometimes watched me oscillate between\nchild and man, and though cautious, she knew she was falling. \"I'd like\nto live outside the law, honestly,\" I said. We nearly pretended a kiss, until\na heron took flight from a narrow creek bed. Its blue wings moved effortlessly, and we decided even pretending was dangerous. \"Billy the Kid,\nyou're not,\" she said and reached into the creek, lifted a shotgun-slug-size\nchunk of pyrite. The rock matched the colour of her ring, but the miners\nin 1860 weren't all fools. We left the ghost town\u00E2\u0080\u0094declaring it ours\u00E2\u0080\u0094and\ncame upon a large farmhouse with a No Trespassing sign in the window, a\nfaded realtor's sign on the lawn. She was hesitant, but I insisted. Walking\nup the gravel drive, we marvelled at the house, the out-buildings, the\norchards, all overgrown with briars. We walked through the unlocked\ndoors. She took calculated steps like she might fall through the floor at\nany moment. \"A house not living in the present,\" she said. Sticking our\nheads out a glassless window, we watched a car slowly drive by, and we\nretreated back outside. In the orchard, we walked through deep grass\nand over apples soft like river rocks at their melting point. I imagined\ngrazing horses, carrots in the small fists of children. Spooked by the car,\nshe kept looking back to the paved road. \"You scared yourself,\" I said. I\ntried to point out how easy it would be to pull the briars from everything.\nThe car drove by again\u00E2\u0080\u0094this time even slower. She wanted to get off the\nproperty, but I blocked her way. Like machine gun fire, a woodpecker\nstruck behind us. We both flinched. I turned to identify the joker\u00E2\u0080\u0094a pile-\nated woodpecker, crow-size with a red crest like a flamboyant cowboy\nhat\u00E2\u0080\u0094and she headed down the driveway. \"Will you look at that?\" I said.\nShe was on the far side of the car, cursing at the backseat. On the drive\nhome, she said, \"When given the choice\u00E2\u0080\u0094\" \"Paper over plastic every\ntime,\" I said. \"When given the choice,\" she continued. We passed a Falling Rock sign, and she scanned the cliff face. \"You do the right thing,\" she\nfinished. Dirt was painted on her chin, forearms, and fingers. \"You've got\nto be a straight shooter,\" I said. Like the burrows of giant prairie dogs,\n43 mineshafts puckered from the hillsides. \"If those miners found it, they\ntook it,\" she said. She thumped the steering wheel with her palm. Dried\nmud speckled my lap. We drove back to the city in silence, trying to keep\nour eyes forward. The realtor's sign was upside down in the backseat,\nlegs still caked with dirt. I tried to call the number on the sign, but we\nwere too far gone for service.\n44 Tyronejaeger\nThe Petrified Forest\nOutside, birds chattered, and after slow morning sex, Cybill\npulled on the quill of a feather that had pierced her pillowcase.\nIn her mind, she rehearsed the pointed truth. \"How did you get\nthose scrapes on your back?\" Doug had just asked. He'd kissed the arch\nof her foot, tickling her. It hurt to laugh. \"Looks like rug burn.\" She'd\nhad sex with an arborculturist on the plastic carpet of his hatchback.\nHad she been thinking, she would have laid down a blanket or even her\njacket. She tested the point of the feather on the back of her hand and\nthen lightly poked Doug's leg with the sharp tip. He winced\u00E2\u0080\u0094more than\nhe should have\u00E2\u0080\u0094and waited for her answer, sat up and looked outside.\nThe morning light turned green as it passed through tree leaves. She\nstroked the white down. In a college zoology class, she'd learned that the\nsmoothness of a feather is actually composed of a series of intertwined\nbarbs. She remembered the party, the fire, the beer and cigarettes. The\narborculturist had driven her to a gravel pull-off where fallen, petrified\ntrees lay propped on large rocks. A bronze plaque told their history, but\nstill he'd showed her the growth rings and explained how they were scars\ndepicting drought, hard times, growth spurts\u00E2\u0080\u0094the patterns hid nothing\nfrom the astute observer. The night before, Doug had taken her to an\naction movie, and she was convinced that nothing happened that she\nhadn't seen before. The arborculturist had kissed her in front of the stone\nwood, even though he knew her living arrangements. In his car, their\nclothes flew like feathers when a coyote enters a chicken house. She tried\nto think of it as an event rather than a poor decision. \"It's nothing,\" she\nsaid. \"I think it was from the other day when we were wrestling in the\nliving room.\" She remembered Doug's pin, was positive she'd escaped\nbefore he'd counted to three. He'd stood up and flexed his biceps. \"I'm\nsorry for playing so rough,\" Doug said. He smiled his victory grin. \"Let\nme make it up to you. We'll go to the nursery. A few hanging plants for\nthe back porch?\" She blew on the feather, the barbs caught her breath\nand extended, flight. With the quill point of the feather, she drew a ring\nin the dry skin of Doug's ankle. \"That tickles,\" he said. With increased\npressure, she formed concentric circles. \"Stop,\" he said, giggling. He\nplayfully bit her calf, trying to stifle his laughter. He pounded the pillow,\nmore laughter. Suddenly, he flipped back over on top of her, grabbing\n45 both her wrists in one hand. She held tight to the feather, and he began\nto tickle her, his fingers digging into her stomach and her armpits. She\ntightened her stomach muscles, her arms. Her jaw clenched, she refused\nto laugh and knew he would eventually count to three. The petrified trees\nwere 370 million years old and had grown in a coastal forest. They were\nactually gigantic ferns, not even trees, and Doug would never recognize\nthem. Cybill concentrated on stillness, on solidifying her position.\n46 Tyronejaeger\nMy Wife in the Bath\nMy wife relaxes in the tub while rain pops on the tin roof, and\nI imagine a lightning strike, a solid plate of blue electricity.\nThree straight weeks of rain, and when Cybill drains the tub,\nriverbank rings will remain. Her leg breaks the surface of the water, like\nNessie beckoning the paranormal tourists. A wave of a foot and a wiggle\nof toes is all it takes for me to fetch the camera. I've seen pictures of\nmy wife in the bath\u00E2\u0080\u0094bubble baths with her little brother and a rubber\nduck. I ruin the moment by thinking of grown men with my wife in the\nbath or in the shower, or worse, her and a man stark naked beneath a\nsecret waterfall. My wife has a thing for secret waterfalls. I ruin it, and\nthe tin roof takes the lightning strike, and just like that, we're staring at\nthe dark sky, rain falling in the bathroom. \"I'd like a foot massage, sir,\"\nshe says, sinking up to her chin and resting her legs on the tub edge, like\nnothing's happened. She doesn't cover herself or ask me to fix the roof.\nThe teakettle whistles, and since we're evidently not paying attention to\nthe roof, I say, \"I'll get your tea.\" My belly begins to ache. An adventurous man would hop in with her, socks and all, but I steep tea. I cover my\nhead with a towel and wish we lived on a dry planet. We'd be Bedouins,\nhiding our bodies with great, bland sheets. But no oases, no harems, no\ngenies in bottles. Just a lot of sheep and people making goat cheese. But\nas a Bedouin, I wouldn't have this: bubbles up to her chin, and when\nshe sits up to reach for the teacup in my hand, bubbles sliding down to\nreveal breasts, a nipple. I pour the remaining water from the teakettle\ninto the bath; she closes her eyes. She pokes a toe above the water and\nwhispers, \"Thanks.\" I hold her wet toe and for some reason my eyes tear\nup. \"Look at the roof!\" I moan. I sit down on the toilet to regain my balance. Then I'm up on the roof with a blue tarp and a staple gun, repairing the damage nature thinks of as its duty. Back inside, Cybill's skin is\nsoft and pink after her bath. She wears only a robe, but I take her hand\nand lead her outside into the rain. \"This is so Scandinavian,\" she says\nand laughs. Immediately her skin is gooseflesh. I take off my shirt and\nopen her robe. We embrace. The water tastes new, our feet sink in the\nsaturated ground. I sidestep, pulling her with me, almost dancing. \"Look\ndown,\" I say. Water fills our deep and muddy footprints. \"Dip me,\" she\nsays. Without another word, we agree that these imprints will become\nthe fossils through which future people will know us.\n47 Ariel Gordon\nFall back: warming the engine\nNovember no snow yet\nso she practices bedroom window prognostication\nthe light dying weekly\nweakly\nuntil downstairs\ncold snaps the screen door open shut\ncold and the tinkle of his keys\nchanging the way the day hangs\noutside marigolds missed in fall's bedding down\nflower again amidst the tatter of leaves the morning's frost\nand she knows mushrooms are the midnight children\nof lightning and soil\nbut she wonders what's begot the moment\npelting rain starts\nto float\nthe snow sweating\ngone when it hits pavement\n48 November no snow yet\nso there's no excuse for the full-frontal airbag thwack\nof full-blast heat from vents\nthose days she can't bear to walk to work\npreferring the woolly tucked-in pockets\nof warmth between the blankets and her legs\nas the furnace shudders turns over\nthe solder-seaming of fingers\nclasped around a cup\nand her content\nto cup the middle-ear mid-afternoon space\nshe finds underwater her head sinking\ngoing under\nsteam icing the mirrors\nand the last of the sun\n49 November and it is a day of standing in the garage\nshrugging under layers strange and itchy\nsleeves smelling of last season's unraveling\nof Kleenex padding at pulse-points of scissoring joints\nmaking pills while the car shows frost\nlike blossoming mold on the moon roof and side panels\nand she's already struggled\nagainst the shock\nof pushing out into the backyard\nand meeting heaps of snow where yesterday\nthere was only the squeak of ungreased struts\nbut the scraper is buried under layers\nof dirty tools and the fertilized idea\nthat she'd rake and mulch\none of these days\nIt is a day of standing in broken snow\nstumbling over the footprints of those that have come before\nthe frozen spikes of grass the network of tar worms\nfilling cracks from all the years\nof freeze\nthaw\nand the curbside glint of garbage\ndropped from windows opened just a crack gone\nglassy ruts forcing her into the snow\ninto scraping the windows\nwith her third-best credit card\n50 Fall back: off leash\nThe dogs frolic packs form all along the field\nwild flowers weeds turn tender\nturn tippy\nunder the stiff lip of wind leaves crunch\nburn bright in scraps of sun\ntumble the way the pack loosening\nshows tips of tongues bowed backs\nall of them feigning submission\nMilkweed starbursts and pinwheels all along the path\nscrub oak blasts joints and bones\nwhere grey sky parts cold and colder\nuntil foxglove rasps phlegm\nin out\nand the red ribs of alder above\ngo rich and dead\nSun arc-welds the day down all along the horizon\nlines of geese solder the sky\nmake inexpert seams\nthe day goes smoky gutters\nwhile she fumbles for the fingers\ncrammed sodden cold in his pocket\nand as the pack reforms like foam around their legs\nshe listens for the clip of leashes\nclosing\n51 Stan Rogal\nDoggie Style\nAy, chihuahua marks change from adjunct to accessory when pampered\npooches canoodle on par, either bagged in Chanel or snuggled into\ndesigner breasts to enjoy handsome scented scarves & lattes served\nwith meringue pears on stilton, woof, woof\nGone to the dogs not so bad in this holy wood where lap of luxury is\nlined with mink & the great tit skirls its chanced-on song from parts\nheld in with cream & sweet meats.\nHilarity defies this otherwise long-face tale: Tinkerbell sacked as too big\nfor her Boss britches, haha. Spell broke & fairy dust a bust, who pirates\nhell town spanks a salvo across the nose, spilling yellow press yuks even\nas Bambi tramps in for a giddy snort.\nCanine wars heat up an itty-bitty bit along the catwalk as some not-so-\nbright neighs aspersions through the ether toward a biatch heiress held\nin lieu of a tinker's belle.\nPay me a little or pay me a lot ends reason at this stoop & scoop that\nputs on the dog & hoovers with the best of them. Neither a parrot's\nhalting yawn nor a duck's skirled chanson feels so at ease where purses\nmew & cash shots exact in nipples & dimes.\nStarving for success unheard of in the dog realm has its ass kicked\nfor chowing down even as the pin thin are nicked all to rat shit, their\nlaurels flung to boil in the press.\n52 Daniel Priest\nIn Defense of Love and the\nNew Mexico Landscape\nThe blue drowse of watercolour hills\nunder a fried egg sun. Lizard-lazy beneath\nthe tapping circuit of the patio fan.\nTourists speak German\nat the empty bar. Take a mouthful\nof beer, a bite of asado. Your tongue's\na flame, a little livid sun.\nSinge the landscape with names\nfor the purple flowers beside the highway\nand the grey brows of mountains\na hundred miles away. Every fence\nironic. This everlasting\nlaundered sky begins at our lips.\nAnother beer. An afternoon of stupid\njokes that tilt us nearly from our chairs.\nTortilla chips and salsa verde.\nJukebox growls at the desert\nempty as a vacant room, full\nof light. There's nothing between us\nand that blue, possible distance.\n53 Robert Brazeau\nTelemarketing\nGordon is always talking about his sore knees. One of them hurts more\nthan the other, but I can't remember which. Or maybe it changes. Or\nmaybe they're both getting worse. Usually he just says, \"Christ, my\nknees hurt,\" but lately he's getting bored of that, and says \"My knees\nare a bastard\" or \"What the hell is this?\" My mother was going to kick\nhim out, but now she feels she can't. His mother and my mother are\nfriends, and when he moved to Toronto to start college my mother said\nhe could stay with us until he found a place. Then he stopped going\nto class. Then a month later he heard he could get some of his tuition\nback if he withdrew, so he did. Still, he won't go home.\nMy mother got him a job as a telemarketer, which wasn't easy, since\nthey don't really like you doing that from home. It seems like that's the\nbest place to do it from, but they would rather you work in the office\nso they can monitor how efficient you are and all that. At least that's\nwhat they say, but I don't know if it's true. Gordon got fired because he\ncomplained about his knees to people on the phone. He was supposed\nto be telling them about furnace cleaning or home security, but instead\nhe would just say \"I wish my knees weren't so sore all the time.\" Very\neven keel, because they were strangers.\n54 Knute Skinner\nRinging the Number\nRinging the number,\nI let my finger hang in the air.\nI think of the one at the other end\nof the call I have not yet made.\nShe is stabbing a cigarette out\nand pouring a second or a third cup of tea.\nShe is slipping out of her faded Chinese robe\nand easing a thick leg into sudsy water.\nShe is painting her nails,\ntoe after toe in dark scarlet fury.\nShe is taking her pills, or else\nshe's neglecting to take them.\nAnd I? I am telling myself\nto ring her number.\n55 Chris Kuhn\nCrocodile Tears\nI bump into a street child, not six years old. He holds his ground, tilts\nhis head back and cups his palms between us. His eyes demand and\nplead. I step back, reach into my pocket and give him some coins. I\ndo it sleight-of-hand but four more boys appear, stepping out between\npedestrians, coming up behind me, moving in.\n\"I don't have my wallet,\" I say, lifting my shirt. Except for the bills\nfolded in my breast pocket and the coins I just gave away, I left everything of value in my car. I'm not even wearing my watch.\nTheir fast eyes rummage. I will not fool them. The first boy smiles and\ngives me the finger. He flips it loosely and says, \"Fokjou ma.\" I want to hit\nhim on his outsized head. The little shit. Bedraggled pants, torn T-shirt,\nthe smell of piss: so unlike Johan, my own son, even at his worst. The\nboy spins and sets his shoulder to the crowd. Gone, quick as he came.\nI breathe and walk.\nI haven't seen Hillbrow in years. There are blacks everywhere. The\nshops I once knew are gone. I don't recognize these new establishments:\nLick-a-Chicken, Bra Mamba's Corner Cafe, Black Beauty Stylz, Before the\nelections, this part of Johannesburg was trendy. We'd hang out in bars\nand clubs. I'm amazed how things have changed.\nI've come to meet Thabo Msimang, the boy I played with in our\ngarden almost three decades ago, up to the time we were ten. I'm meeting with him but it's his mother, Mavis, whom I really want to see. She\nworked for us as a live-in maid, before I lied about the money. I blamed\nher and got her fired.\nThe sidewalks are packed. People spill onto the road, weaving between parked cars and stalls. A vendor shoos flies from his mangos but\nnot his face. An old woman, wrinkled like biltong, hunches on an upturned crate, cradling a tray of Simba chips, Eveready batteries and Lion\nmatches for sale. A radio pumps kwaito, blending with distant police\nsirens that doppler and wail. The sticky smell of dagga nudges; a boy in\nschool uniform lopes along floating inside his untucked shirt, socks hugging ankles, and a joint dangling from his lips. No one seems to care. No\none gives a damn about me either. It's a free country now. I'm allowed\nto be here. So are the blacks.\nI suppose it's better this way. At least during daylight hours.\n56 I find the place I'm looking for and step inside: Hillbrow Fish V Chips.\nPeople queue at the counter for their orders. Some sit on yellow plastic chairs around tables by the window. I sit down and wait. There are\nglances. I avoid those that linger and look at the vinyl tablecloths of\nunknown colour, faded to beige, with bleached patches and sticky swirls\nof cleaning-product residue.\nMavis had lived with Thabo in quarters annexed to the garage at the\nback of our house. Their whole room was the size of our kitchen and her\nbathroom was not en suite. It wasn't even in the house. You had to leave\nthe room, walk along the ten-foot wall surrounding our property, and go\ninto a separate stall. The shower was in the same room as the toilet, just\na pipe jutting out of the wall above the cistern: not next to the toilet but\nabove it, the whole design crammed into a two-by-four space at most. If\nyou wanted to shower you could close the toilet lid, or not. Everything\nwould get soaked anyway. My brother and I would joke that Mavis was\nlucky because she had hot water. Then we'd say she was luckier than us\nbecause she could clean her toilet at the same time she showered. We'd\ncrack up then. Neither of us ever cleaned a toilet in our lives.\nThe smell of vinegar spikes the air. Hillbrow Fish 'n' Chips is getting\nhotter. It's a family business, I decide: mom hawks the till from her high-\nperch chair; dad jiggles the deep fryer with sidelong glances. Working\nsounds clutter the space in back and when the kitchen doors swing open\nI see the peeling of potatoes, the filleting of fish and packing of plates.\nIn front, two daughters assemble orders with dignified disdain and push\nthem, at arm's length, across the counter. Their smiles are not for sale.\nThabo must be late. It feels I've been sitting here forever. I ask two\nmen at the table next to me: \"'Scuse me, d'you have the time?\" They\nlook at each other and grin with fish-full mouths.\n\"A mosweu without the time,\" one says, churning flakes and slurring\nwords. \"That's a first.\" They laugh and tell me it's ten-twenty. So Thabo\nisn't late after all. I've wanted to meet with him so long to make good my\nlie.\nIt started the day Nelson Mandela was released in Cape Town: Sunday, February 11th, 1990. I was a student at UCT at the time. None of\nmy friends would go to the welcoming rally at the Town Hall Plaza.\nThey said I was crazy: all those blacks and police in the same place\nmeant trouble for sure. And they were right. Police shot two people who\nthey said were looting but I never saw any of that, didn't even know\nit had happened till it came on the news. It was a huge crowd, at least\nfifty thousand souls. I'd stood there and never felt more alone. I guess it\nwas stupid to go solo, but everyone said that for apartheid, this was the\nbeginning of the end. People sang freedom songs and toyi-toyed, the martial dance of struggle: double bounce on each foot, shuffling forward in\n57 between, alternate knees bent and raised. Simple steps repeated, hands\nwinging the air for emphasis and balance, phalanxes of dancers hitching forward. The concrete was their instrument, percussing underfoot. I\nfelt it in my knees and stomach and the jelly of my eyes. I'd be lying if I\nsaid I wasn't scared. That's what the toyi-toyi is all about. I'd stood there\nwatching the singing and dancing and thought of Mavis. She and Thabo\nwere the only blacks I'd ever really known outside of work. She'd have\nloved to have been there, to greet Mandela. She would've talked to me.\n\"Hau! Baas Derek,\" she'd have said. \"It's been a long time since I saw\nyou, hey? Tall and strong like your daddy. Isn't this a great day?\" But of\ncourse I had no idea where she was, what she would have said or felt. I\nwas ten when I got her sacked. When I gambled with her fat cheeks and\nthick smile, the smell of her Lifebuoy skin, the sound of her voice wooing me to sleep in Sesotho. Maybe she wouldn't have cared to see me at\nall. Like Alice, my ex-wife, and Johan.\nOne of the daughters behind the counter stares me down. She struts\nout and anchors herself in front of me, hands on hips.\n\"You will order?\" she asks, looking down at me, prodding the words\nwith her chin.\n\"I'm waiting for a friend. He'll be here soon.\"\n\"Then you will order?\" she asks again. There's nothing she wants\nmore than to throw me out, even though the place isn't full. A decade\nago she wouldn't have dared talk to me like that. She wouldn't have\nbeen the daughter.\nSo much has happened since the first elections: a black president,\na new constitution, the Rugby World Cup won by our men in green. I\nbecame an engineer, got married and Johan was born. For more than ten\nyears everything was fine. Then it went to hell and we got divorced. Now\nJohan and his mother live on the other side of the country and I see him\nmaybe three times a year, and then only with professional supervision.\nIt's when I'm with him that I miss him most.\nAfter the divorce I threw myself at work and started a company that\ndesigns and builds low-cost prefabricated housing. We do great business\nin the \"New\" South Africa. Everyone needs a house. The government\npays for contracts, which is what the Redistribution and Development\nProgram is all about. Just last week I signed off on another five-hundred\nunits and I'm doing rather well. My black investors are doing better.\nStinking rich, in fact. On Fridays we play golf.\n\"We'll order a whole lot when he comes,\" I say. I give her my blankest stare and cross my legs. I'll hold on to what I've got, thank you very\nmuch.\nAn old man hobbles in and says, iiMmoro baas,\" in greeting. I hate it\nwhen they do that, as if I'm responsible for their lives. I nod without giv-\n58 ing him a second glance and turn again to the daughter, but the old man\nstops by my chair.\n\"Mister Stewart?\"\nMy mouth dries like water in a hot pan. He's in a tweed jacket sagging at the shoulders. His pants are too big. Palpably poor. He presses a\nwashed-out woolen cap to his belly, the furrows in his fingers akin to the\nrough pattern of the knit.\nI say, \"Thabo Msimang?\"\n\"It is me, sir. I am the son of Mavis. I am sorry I am late.\"\nI can't believe it. He looks twenty years older than me though we\nwere born in the same year; his skin is drawn tight over high cheekbones, reticulating into wrinkles around swampy eyes. No resemblance\nto Mavis, as far as I can tell, but it's been too long.\nI stand up. We shake hands in the loose, triple-grip African style: first\nnormal, then up, then down again. He cups our fists with his other hand.\nHis skin is dry and cool. We stand, holding hands. His collar and the\nedges of his old tweed jacket are frayed. I feel over-starched and new in\nmy orange Polo shirt. Like peacock and pigeon. At least I didn't wear my\nwatch.\n\"It's good to see you, Thabo,\" I say, sliding my hand out of his, projecting my best smile. \"How are you?\"\n\"I am well, thank you, sir,\" he says. I'm glad he's stopped calling me\nboss.\nBut it's awkward.\nWe stand a moment longer.\nThe daughter has gone and the men next to us stop talking. I feel their\ngaze. The whole shop looks. A black and a white shaking hands and saying hello like old friends. Except it must be obvious we're not.\nI point to a chair. \"Please. Sit down. I'm starving. How about some\nfish 'n' chips?\"\nHe says yes and thanks me and tucks himself into the chair, straight\nup against the backrest, as if he's afraid he'll slip off. I walk to the counter, relieved by the moment's reprieve. I'd expected a man in his prime.\nThe letter I'd received from him had been carefully written on clean\nblue paper, postmark Thabazimbi. He'd written that he was sorry it took\nhim so long to respond, but that he'd heard I was looking for him. He'd\ngiven today's date, the time and place. He had no number to reach me at\nand had given none for me to confirm. He must have started out before\nsunrise to get here in time.\nI order the fish and chip combo for him, but just the fries for me. I\nwait at the counter while the other daughter assembles the food. She\nbrings her head up from time to time as she folds the meals into white\npaper and looks at me. I take the food, step along, pull cash from my\n59 shirt pocket and hand it to the mother. She also gives me a funny look.\nMaybe it's all in my head. I stuff five rand in the tip jar without thinking.\nToo late. Five rand is the price of a whole other meal.\nThabo is ravenous. He eats quickly, breaking off pieces of battered\nfish while still chewing. I find it hard to eat.\n\"It's been a long time, Thabo,\" I say after several minutes. His fish is\nalmost gone.\n\"Yes sir,\" he says, nodding, points of brightness in his eyes.\n\"I want to thank you for your letter and for meeting me today. I've\nbeen trying to find you for some time.\" Thabo continues nodding while\nhe eats. Looking for him sure was easier than this. I want to tell him, but\nI'm not sure how. I have no idea why I did it. I was only ten.\nMavis and my mother had stood by the buffet in the dining room.\nMother in her tennis kit, Mavis in her uniform, both outfits white with\npink trim. My mother had one hand on her hip and the other, when she\nwasn't wagging her finger, poised on the polished counter, staking her\nclaim. Mavis had held both hands to her face. She'd looked at my mother through her fingers, shaking her head. \"I've been working for you\nten years, madam,\" Mavis had said. \"Why would I steal now?\" She'd\nlooked at me over Mom's shoulder where I was standing in the hallway\nwatching everything. She kept looking at me as tears stained her cheeks\nblacker. I ran into my room and shut the door and laughed. I sat on\nmy bed and hugged myself and put my fingers to my face. I mimicked\nher boo-hoos and the adrenalin burnt through me. I still feel the path it\ntook.\nIt started with the freeing of Mandela because we whites generally\nbegan crawling out of our shells. Suddenly, it was hard to find someone\nwho had outright supported apartheid. Suddenly everyone had always\nbeen for some measure of change. We all tried to roll with it. I was the\nsame. The rally made me \"remember\" Mavis and Thabo because as the\ngame and the score changed it made sense to wonder whom one knew\non the other team. First I tried to find them through Thabo's preschool\nrecords, which my parents had paid for, but it turned out Mavis had given our address as her home. So I enlisted Sophina, the maid who works\nfor me now. She'd started coming in to help after the divorce. I asked\nher what I might do to find a black man and his mother whom I'd lost. I\ntold her some of the story. I was surprised she didn't think it strange, as\nif I was asking her to clean the cupboard under the sink. She spread the\nword at the township churches and post office. She made a big deal out\nof it.\n\"Thabo, the reason I wanted to see you is because we grew up together, as you know. We used to play with my toy cars in the garden.\nMavis...your mother...she looked after us both like sons.\"\n60 \"Yes. I remember, Mister Stew...\"\n\"Look,\" I interrupt. \"Call me Derek, okay? Please.\"\nHe looks away.\nI shift in my seat.\nPerhaps he's never been on first name terms with a white. Perhaps\nI've insulted him by using his? I don't know.\n\"So yes, I wanted to find out how you are and I want to know about\nyour mother. I have very good memories of her, Thabo. It's a long story.\nFor many years I didn't think about her but that changed when things\nchanged, you know? When President Mandela was released I was there.\nEverything came back. And other things have happened.\"\nThabo nods, his expression flat.\nIt's most comfortable when I'm talking, although the words have to\nshove and push to get through my throat. I tell him how I thought I'd\nseen Mavis that day in Cape Town. How I'd noticed a woman overcome\nby emotion. How friends had stood around her, struggling to keep her\non her feet while she wailed and sobbed. How, when she did sag to the\nground, her arms flopped at her sides and she sat there, staring into\nspace. That passing hands touched her on her shoulders and voices consoled her. How, when she moved her head, her eyes trailed. How she'd\nbrought her hands to her face and stared through her splayed fingers just\nlike Mavis. That I'd gone up and asked and she hadn't answered, but\none of her companions had said no, she was not.\n\"Thabo, it was me who stole that money. I got your mother fired.\"\nHis eyes are steady, backlit perhaps by anger, maybe pain. He looks\nto one side. A breeze slinks in, lifting an edge of the oil-stained paper his\nmeal was wrapped in. He moves his hand to hold it down.\nWe sit.\nI bow my head.\nSo I've told him, but it feels as if the lie is fresh. As if I'd done it this\nvery morning and am still doing it. As if Mavis had just now walked out\nthe door. Just like Alice and Johan.\nThabo takes a deliberate breath and commands my eyes. He purses\nhis mouth and clasps his hands in front of him. He says, \"Mister Derek.\nI am sorry you did not have a chance to tell my mother. She died long\nbefore Madiba was released. In Thabazimbi. If you like, I will take you\nto her grave.\"\nThe northern suburbs of the city are behind us. We've been driving\nfor about an hour. The Magaliesberg roll by in sets like waves, valleys\ntroughing ancient ridges, the straight road rolling up and down. We pass\nwide pastured farms with neat greenhouses and fields of parading roses.\nThere are few people, black or white, and everything seems in its place.\n61 My BMW scours the tar, the only sound from the aircon as it pushes cold\ninto the cab.\nThabo accepted my condolences with grace. I'd never considered\nthat Mavis might have passed away. Too late.\nI tell him more about me. I talk about Alice and Johan, who is now\njust a few years older than when Thabo and I last met. I tell him I don't\nsee him much. I talk about my business and that if it wasn't for Sophina's\nefforts, we wouldn't be here today.\n\"What happened to you after you left?\" I ask.\n\"It is a long time ago.\"\n\"But you remember?\"\n\"Yes, Mister Derek, I remember. It is hard to say. For many years I\nhaven't thought about those times. They were not easy years.\"\n\"I'm sorry, Thabo.\"\n\"Yes, sir. It is all right.\"\nWe come up fast behind a bus belching blue smoke. I press the air-\nrecycle button. Children press their faces to the rear window, bags and\nfurniture strapped to its roof, a crate of scruffy chickens tethered to the\nrails. From the low vantage of the Beamer the rear and front axles are\nboth visible because the chassis is bent from constant overloading, like\na giant crab crawling along the road. I edge out of our lane and gun the\nmotor and we surge past. I glance up at women and children stuffed into\ntheir seats.\n\"I don't know what to say, Thabo. Maybe there's some way I can\nmake amends, you know?\"\nThabo looks at me. I feel his gaze. I sense hope, or anticipate it, but\nwhen I glance at him he's not happy about what I've said.\n\"Please do not think what you did was the worst thing that happened\nto us, Mister Derek. Even now that apartheid is over, we are still poor\nand bad things still happen. But we are a big family. Sometimes good\ncomes our way and we make do, with and for each other. It would make\nme happy if you paid your respects to my mother. She talked of you\noften as I grew up, even as she gave me this jacket that your father wore.\nIt is between you and her. Perhaps just between you and you. Maybe\nshe will give you the answer you are looking for, or you will find it some\nother way.\"\nI flush deeply. Snubbed. I grip the steering wheel and slow the car\nto a crawl as we come to a four-way stop. A handful of boys play soccer in the sand on the verge of the road, their ball made of plastic bags\nscrunched together and taped. They bounce it on their knees and chests\nand heads and the crooks of their feet but they stop playing as we pull\nup. They'll ask for money for their team. A proud little ambassador is\nalready approaching. Perhaps if Thabo wasn't here I would buy my pas-\n62 sage from them. Then again, if Thabo wasn't here why would I be? I pull\naway.\nIt was not the worst thing. What you did.\nWell I wish it was! Goddamn. I am here now. I've owned up. But for\nwhat? An indignation? Just a bump for them? It's embarrassing. Or I'm\nconfused. And it makes me angry. What does he know about my life?\nWhat does he know about how I feel? What I'm capable of?\nI look at him. He's focused on the road.\nWinding footpaths furrowed into bare ground crisscross dusty expanses on either side. Goats tear out what grass exists by the roots. Mud\nhuts and dilapidated brick houses dot the distance underneath a haze of\nsmoke hanging low in the sky. There are no trees. Just stumps. Harried\ndogs lope and sniff in ditches, nosing trash blown up against sagging\nstrands of barbwire strung between the remnant posts of a fence. I'm\nsurprised the wire hasn't been stolen along with everything else.\nI breathe and drive.\nI've been told to breathe when the anger comes.\nAhead, a fat woman turns and looks back in our direction. She wears\nskirts of seeping colours splashed about her legs and a regal headdress\nwound high and tight, her baby blanket strapped against her back. One\narm behind her tucks the child, the other, in front, supports her lolling\nbreasts.\nThabo sits up. He points and says, \"Haul That's my sister, Lerato.\nShe's walking home.\"\nI pull over and open the window. She looks in, sees Thabo, and greets\nhim in Sesotho: \"Dumela aubuti,\"\u00E2\u0080\u0094hello older brother\u00E2\u0080\u0094and he answers\nin kind. They confer briefly and she curtsies in my direction. \"Dumela\nmorena,\" she says, although she doesn't meet my eyes. I say hello and tell\nThabo to invite her in. She cups her hands and claps softly a number of\ntimes, a deep hollow sound. \"Dankie, my baas,\" she says in Afrikaans and\nwith one motion unhinges the blanket around her middle and swings the\nbaby by its arm to her chest. She opens the back door and climbs in. I\ncatch her looking at me in the mirror. She grins and looks down.\n\"You are Lerato, Thabo's sister?\" I say.\nuJa baas,\" she says.\nThey confer again in Sesotho, Lerato clapping her hands twice\nmore.\n\"She thanks you for stopping, Mister Derek,\" Thabo says. \"She has\nbeen walking all day from a friend's house where she was visiting to introduce her new child and to charge her cellphone. She is happy that we\ncame along. Thank you. I'm very happy that you stopped.\"\nAt that moment I think I recognize him for the first time: the way he\ntucks his chin in when he smiles and scrunches his eyes. Mavis did the\n63 same. It's tempting to believe she never thought of me, that she didn't\ncare about the little white boy she looked after. It's convenient to think\nshe hated me because it makes it seem okay that I got her fired. I am\nhumbled, in my fast car, to be here with this poor man, his sister and her\nbaby.\nThe baby suckles. It slurps and smacks, breathing through its nose.\n\"What's its name?\" I ask Thabo, fighting the tremble in my voice.\n\"Her name is Ramakeele. It means, She Came By Surprise.\"\nWe laugh and the relief of it clears my head. I look out over the countryside. People hold hands and talk. I catch the glint of a smile here and\nthere as we flash by. A woman gesticulates across the road to another\nwho's sweeping in front of her hut with a straw broom. Up ahead, a\ndrunk man tries to walk. He swings a hand and the bottle in it, flaying the\nair, trying to check his rubber legs. With the other he points prophet-like\nat people around him. Some laugh and shoo him off, others shake their\nheads and look away. A boy begins to run alongside the car holding out\na tin can, the promise of commerce abeam on his face. He wants me to\nbuy his worms.\n\"Mister Derek!\" Thabo says. \"We must turn left here.\"\nI brake gently so as not to endanger Ramakeele still feeding in the\nback. The tires crunch onto the gravel and I see the deeply rutted dirt\nroad winding into the bush.\n\"Eish! This is a good car, Mister Derek,\" Thabo says, grimacing. \"I\nhope this road will not hurt it underneath.\" As he says this I misjudge\nand dirt grapples the low-slung undercarriage.\n\"It doesn't matter, Thabo. It's just a car,\" I say. The tires find traction\nand I ease the vehicle forward.\n\"I am worried it gets worse,\" Thabo says. He grips the passenger door\narmrest and \"brakes\" with his feet. \"This is a good car,\" he says again.\nThe summer sun is past its zenith. I lower the visor and peer intently\nat the road. The Beamer jostles and heaves and I look at Lerato in the\nrear-view mirror. \"Hold on to your baby,\" I say.\nShe returns my look and then her eyes widen and her jaw drops.\nShe screams, pointing to the road.\nI slam the brakes.\nA man and gun.\nDust wells and drifts up all around us, obscuring the figure, as if he\nwere floating, like a ghost.\nNo one says a word.\nDust shifts, the Beamer idles like a dog at heel, the child sniffles. Thabo breathes, my hands on the wheel, the thumping in my chest.\nAnother man at my window. Another gun.\nMy foot is welded to the brake.\n64 He shouts and waves the weapon. I don't know what to do.\nMy leg shakes.\nA window bursts.\nDoors open.\nI'm yanked out by the collar and dragged to the ground on my back.\nSky and trees and boots and screams.\nCold metal rests against my forehead. I close my eyes.\n\"Oh God!\" I mumble. \"OhJesus!\"\nA boot comes down on my chest. Hands grope my pockets. I open\nmy eyes at the infernal face above me, twisted and mean.\nI focus on its chin. It is a moment for respect.\n\"Where's your wallet?\" the face says and the pressure mounts. Gun\nand boot; oil and leather.\n\"Cubbyhole!\" I blurt.\nThe face turns and talks. I swivel my head to look under the car,\nThabo on the other side, face to one side also.\nMore feet. Laughing and jeers.\nLerato screams.\nThabo shouts and struggles, lifting his body off the ground against\nall restraint. The gun comes down in his face and he lies still. There is\nblood. Our eyes meet and I recognize his surprise. The outrage. His fear.\nI've seen it before, much closer to home.\nDoors slam.\nThe engine roars and tires spin.\nFumes sting my eyes and nose and I roll away and suck up coughing\nswirls of dust. Everything is blonde.\nWho can say the place they're buried is more beautiful than the place\nthey lived? A green hillside under msasa trees and the setting sun, long\nshadows of birds and clouds sweeping the earth, wafts of wild lavender\nadrift on the evening air. The grass sponges beneath my feet. A mound\nand small rock mark the grave. A far cry from her room in my parents'\nhouse.\nThabo stands next to me with his head bowed and eyes closed. His\nexpression is gaunt and drawn, offset by the obscene swelling on his lip.\nHe seems at peace.\n\"It's a good place to rest,\" I say when he lifts his head.\nHe takes time to answer, keeping his eyes on the grave.\n\"All my ancestors are here, Derek. My mother buried my afterbirth\nover there.\" He points to an adjacent hill. \"It is traditional to be buried\nnear the place of birth so that family has access. One day I will lie here\ntoo.\" His eyes are hooded, but he stands straight and bows his head\nagain.\n65 I turn quietly and look down at the village in the valley. Most of the\ndwellings are simple huts: circles of sticks planted in the ground with\nmud caked into the gaps between them. Their thatch roofs are their main\nfeature: straw strung tightly into bushels, layer upon layer, much thicker\nthan the walls, until they're waterproof. Like hats of gold, they reflect the\nsun.\nAfter the carjacking we walked. No car, no phones, no money. My\nloafers had cut into my ankles, so I removed them and went barefoot\nin the warm dirt. Thabo had been mortified, looking at my pale white\nfeet in the sand. \"Your car,\" he'd kept saying. \"Those tsotsis! It's the first\ntime they've struck in daylight.\" He was more upset than me. \"I'm sorry,\nDerek. If I had not invited you this would not have happened. I did not\nthink of tsotsis. Now you are stranded here.\"\n\"Oh crap, Thabo,\" I said, laughing. \"I'm the one who's sorry and if\nyou could make it to Johannesburg, so can I. We could've been killed\nbecause of that stupid car. Or worse! It's not your fault. I'm the one who\nstarted this.\"\nHe wasn't easily convinced and his injury notwithstanding we had\ntalked a great deal as we walked. The tsotsis apparently had been a problem for years; a gang preying on whomever they could find, mostly the\nlocal poor. The police, Thabo said, were useless: outgunned, outnumbered, unmotivated and probably paid off.\nHe told me about his teaching in the village: the lack of funds, the\nbroken building just a large hut with holes for windows to let in light. He\ntalked of sickness and the problem of water, how the wells were running\ndry without rain and the mielies and marog dying in the fields.\nI'd wanted to say that I would build him a school. That in this new\nnation there ought to be solutions to these problems, but I'd held my\ntongue. I would make no promises. Too akin to lies.\nInstead, I told him about Johan. I told him everything. How angry I'd\nbeen, and then how ashamed. That for the years passed since I'd assaulted my son, for all the contrition and shame, the carjacking had made me\nrealize, for the first time, the nature of what I'd done. I told Thabo how\nI'd dragged Johan to his room and ransacked the place while he stood\nthere and smiled. How I'd removed my belt and given him the first\nwhipping he'd ever received and that the more I'd hit him the more he'd\ndenied the charges, stemming from his incessant fibs. That eventually,\nwhen the lashing was well advanced, he'd cursed me and told me what a\nmoron I was. How I'd dropped the belt, dug my hand into his shoulder\nand spun him round, daring him to say it again. That he did, with gusto\nand embellishment, and that I punched him in the face for it. How the\npower had flowed hot through me, tearing up the familiar course, and\nhow I'd punched him again. That Alice had stormed in to see the belt\n66 on the floor and the blood coming from her son and me sweating like a\nPig-\nThabo listened without sign of what he thought or felt and we'd walked\nand taken turns carrying Ramakeele. I'd put my shoes back on and in\ntime the smoke of wood fires in the village had greeted us. No electric\ngate, no splendid garden or any house I'd owned, had ever seemed as\nwarm. Wives and sisters, uncles and children had come out. They'd ministered to his wound. They'd made us tea.\nThen the two of us walked up to the grave along a footpath winding\nthrough the scrub. He'd said: \"So, Derek. Your looking for us really had\nlittle to do with Mandela. It was losing your family, wasn't it? Perhaps\nyou hoped if they could not forgive you, we would. You are scared of\nwho Johan will be. Like you. Of who you are already. There is a poem:\n'The Child is Father of the man...'.\" He'd looked at me and smiled and,\nat first, a head of denial clamored in my throat.\nI'd be lying again if I said that being home in my own place wouldn't\nbe great. To get my car, my wallet and watch back, even. I'd be a downright liar if I said everything was fine, that I feel comfortable here, that\nI'm not in the least bit worried about the bus ride back. That this new\ncountry is easier than the old. That I beat my son for the lies he told.\nWhat about my ancestors, about whom, past my grandfathers, I know\nnothing? Where are they buried? What sewer flushed their afterbirths\ninto the sea, resetting my lineage, and Johan's, to zero? Is it this, about\nmy father, that I cannot forgive? Is there some other reason I don't think\nof him?\nI tarn around again. Thabo is still praying. I kneel by the simple headstone and place my hand on its smoothness, soaking up its warmth. I\nclose my eyes and speak to Mavis. I tell her it's been too long but that\nI am glad the day has come. That although the route of my journey has\nbeen wayward and the reasons for it convoluted, that at the very least,\nit has begun. I tell her I am less afraid, especially of what's close. I feel\nmore control; a better belly for what lies ahead. I tell her that when Johan is older, I hope to bring him here, if he agrees. That at the very least,\nhe'll know of her and Thabo. He'll know more of me.\nThe sun inches lower and the earth moistens my knees. I look up.\nThabo sings softly in words I cannot understand. The village throbs in\ndulcet light. The world out there begins to feel more like the world within. Or the other way around.\nI've never liked to cry but Mavis tells me there's always time. There\nis always time to make it real.\n67 Stephanie Yorke\nSt. Margaret's Square\ncrowned with swingsets, inlaid with a pool.\nEvery third day, you wiggle into\nyour puddle shoes, and ride the bus\nwith a bag of sandwich crusts.\nThe delight of your old age\n(since the death of your responsible spouse)\nhas been eating\nto the perimeter of honey or jam\nand no further, saving that\nfor the fowl.\nCrusts float like cork.\nThe ducks, with their trowel beaks,\ndig in ferociously,\nwringing food through their throats.\nBut the swan,\npipette-necked,\nis choking at the moment.\nYour crust fits like a tampon.\nHer spit glands buckle. Also her wings.\nBlack, her feet rake the water,\nas a tickled child might kick.\nHer neck is an \"S,\" then a cold \"I,\"\nlong and bristling.\nYou pass the bread bag, fist to fist.\nOn the swingsets, the assembled crows\ncaw, caw.\n68 Nadine Mclnnis\nEntertainment: lunatic's ball\nA caged bird, a wild party of one.\nYellow feathers curl at his neck\nlike masquerade finery, his piping voice\nsings only for himself.\nHe dances frenetically from bar to bar\ntempting me to be a small part of such abandon\nbut when he is mine, he goes mad.\nThe pet store owner has never heard of such a thing,\nbut will honour his singing guarantee\nif I wish: guaranteed\nto sing for thirty days, for twenty-one the canary\nis demented with song, stuck\nin mania, trilling day and night\u00E2\u0080\u0094\neven in the covered cage\u00E2\u0080\u0094before he\npulls out all his fancy feathers and falls\nsilent, the intricate songs forgotten.\nVoiceless, he paces the bar,\nflight abandoned, scaled feet clicking as he\nfollows his shadow on the wall, back\nand forth, focusing on the enemy, on himself.\nIs it premonition, compassion\nor morbid fascination that keeps him here,\nin my home, and not banished\nas all things are that do not live up\nto promises made by someone else?\nI know what will happen. No asylum\nfor deranged birds on this earth.\n69 Even in a safe white cage with a view\nto the garden, the worst occurs:\nthe bird hunches at the cage bottom\neating seeds off cut newspaper,\npecking at details of domestic violence,\none hard bitter seed, then another,\nmocks\u00E2\u0080\u0094enjoys walks in the country,\ntick, tick\u00E2\u0080\u0094no skid marks in hit-and-run\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094after a long courageous battle with\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nthe usual shame-free diseases, tick, tick\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094blow out sale\u00E2\u0080\u0094tick, tick\u00E2\u0080\u0094summer\nmadness\u00E2\u0080\u0094yesterday's bad weather\nswirling around him\u00E2\u0080\u0094thunderstorms\u00E2\u0080\u0094\ntick, tick\u00E2\u0080\u0094risk of hail, high gusts, funnel\nclouds. A relief\nwhen he won't drink and falls\ncurled and reptilian with long claws,\nscaled feet, reversing his evolution.\nReduced to fixed bones, feathers,\nand spent primitive rage,\na stone fossil broken open\nlike an egg at the bottom of the cage.\n70 Maureen Hynes\nThe Falls\nThe wrought iron railing, unmistakable, and beyond it,\nthe bleached-out bite the rushing water is still\ntaking out of the mid-continental ledge.\nIn her three-quarters turn away from the camera, the woman\nfaces downriver, looks past the Falls. She folds her shoulders in,\nher solid frame in a thin, three-tiered\ncotton dress, covered buttons down her back,\nher elegant Cuban heels\nand the plain felt hat. Almost a cowering,\na pulling in, yet she holds her face steady\nagainst the spray.\n71 Tracy Hamon\nSpitting Images\nIt starts like this: sunshine and walking\nwith my head down. There is concrete\nand uncertainty in December, the season's\nfirst cough clearing. The design of the sun,\nsmall, the way it stretches and taps\neach arm, each hand in static intervals.\nIce and snow lie confused\non the sidewalk, winter's shelter shelled.\nMy feet need my eyes to stay steady.\nBeside me walks another me, a shadowy path\nslightly ahead of myself. Looking down,\nI am always trying to catch up.*\n*From here\nit is clear what\nI see: two\npennies, the brown\nglass of a crushed\nbottle, a red plastic\nlid shattered\nand a pink condom,\nopened, used,\nits position\nsarcastic, a sign\nas the clouds\nslide out, pull\nover the sun.\nWhen I look up,\nthe other me\nis lost.\n72 Susan McCaslin\nAn Epigram for the Muses\nThey initiate the conversation\nbut seldom help you finish\nThe staying power\nand signature\nare yours\nSly aunts,\nslightly wicked\nhobo goddesses of lost things\nfrom memory's scrap pile,\nthey drop in with a word of advice\nthen disappear\nlike mice\n73 Ann Graham Walker\nAnother Uneasy Spring\nAll that uneasy spring\nwe worked in our gardens\nas soon as the earth was warm\nwe planted onions and peas\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094Bronwen Wallace\nThe first thing I noticed was the\nspaces where people had been\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nhow our mailboxes stayed empty for weeks\nuntil others learned\nwhat the postmistress knew\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nand the medicines you'd bring\nto protect us from fever\nand the slow realization\nall that uneasy spring.\nWe learned to stop shopping,\nto go out in public, drive cars\ninfrequently.\nNo more charters to Cancun, quick flights to Toronto.\nWe bought rubber gloves by the carton\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nthose light rubber disposable ones\nuneasily similar to a party balloon, but with fingers\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nuntil all things disposable ran out.\nOur whole adult family moved in with us\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nwe worked in our gardens.\n74 The first winter of knowing I escaped into knitting\nsomehow calmed by the\nknit one\npurl one\nas the East came unravelled.\nThe oil shortage brutal in Montreal,\nHalifax\u00E2\u0080\u0094freezing death suddenly normal\nin bedrooms, in kitchens.\nThe bodies would be buried\nas soon as the Earth was warm.\nHow everyone waited, at first, for\nsomeone to take charge\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nas if anyone knew\nwhat was being asked of us.\nWe took shelter in memory\u00E2\u0080\u0094\nin the growing, the feeding, the burying,\nthe weeping. We stayed away\nfrom hospitals\u00E2\u0080\u0094perfect\nvectors of death.\nWe planted onions and peas.\n75 Contributors\nRobert Brazeau is a professor of English and Film Studies at the University\nof Alberta, where he teaches Irish Literature and Creative Writing. He lives\nin Edmonton with his partner, Teresa, their four year old daughter, Ailsa,\nand a dog nobody is sure about.\nDeborah Campbell writes for numerous national and international publications on the intersection between people, politics, history and ideas. She is\nthe author of This Heated Place.\npaulo da costa was born in Angola and raised in Portugal. He is a writer,\neditor, and translator who makes his home on the West Coast of Canada,\npaulo's first book of fiction, The Scent of a Lie, received the 2003 Commonwealth First Book Prize for the Canada-Caribbean Region and the W. O.\nMitchell City of Calgary Book Prize. He has recently published the book of\npoems notas de rodape (Livros Pe D'Orelha 2005).\nBarry Dempster's ninth collection of poetry, The Burning Alphabet (Brick\nBooks), was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and won the Canadian Authors Association Chalmers Award for Poetry. He lives in Holland\nLanding, Ontario.\nMary Flanagan is an artist and writer. Her work has been published or is\nforthcoming in Adagio Verse Quarterly, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Ampersand Poetry Journal, and the anthology re:SKIN (MIT Press). She is a\nrecipient of a Vermont Studio Center residency in poetry.\nAriel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Recent projects include a collaboration with composer David Raphael Scott called Tranquility\nand Order that premiered as a part of WSO's 2006 New Music Festival and\non CBC Radio's Two New Hours. Palimpsest Press will publish a chapbook\nof Ariel's poetry in 2007.\nTracy Hamon, resident of Regina, Saskatchewan, is a barber and a poet. Her\nfirst book of poetry, this is not eden, released in April 2005 by Thistledown\nPress, was a finalist for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. In May of 2005 she\nwon the City of Regina Writing Award for a second manuscript of poems.\nJoelene Heathcote is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA program\nat the University of British Columbia, a writer, and a mom. Recent work\nhas appeared in the anthologies String to Bow: a collection of love poems and\nTranslit: volume 7. She is currently massaging a new book of poetry and a\ncollection of short stories.\n76 Maureen Hynes won the League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Award\nfor her first book of poetry, Rough Skin (Wolsak and Wynn). Her second collection, Harm's Way, was published by Brick Books. She is currently working\non a third book of poems.\nTyrone Jaeger's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Southeast Review,\nNimrod, Phantasmagoria, Vanguard (Australia), Descant, South Dakota Review,\nand Beloit Fiction Journal. He has a novel and a short story collection currently searching for homes and is working on a novel about political activists\nwho live in Colorado.\nNuno Jiidice was born in 1949 in Algarve, Portugal. One of the most important contemporary poetic voices in Portuguese literature, he has written\nmore than forty books of poetry, fiction, essays, criticism, and drama. His\npoetry has garnered over a dozen prizes and is translated into twelve languages.\nChris Kuhn was born in South Africa and has lived in Austria, Zimbabwe,\nand Japan. He resides in New York City and is working toward an MFA in\nfiction at Columbia University. He has previously been published in South\nDakota Review.\nMichael Lista was born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario and now lives\nin Montreal's Mile End. His poetry appeared in PRISM 44:4. In 2006, he\nwas shortlisted for ARC Magazine's Poem of the Year Award. A current\nparticipant in the Wired Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts, he\nis working on his first collection of poetry.\nSusan McCaslin is a poet and Instructor of English at Douglas College in\nNew Westminster, BC who has authored ten volumes of poetry and seven\nchapbooks. Susan is the editor of the anthologies A Matter of Spirit: Recovery\nof the Sacred in Contemporary Canadian Poetry (Ekstasis Editions, 1998) and Poetry and Spiritual Practice: Selections from Contemporary Canadian Poets (The St.\nThomas Poetry Series, 2002). Website: www.susanmccaslin.ca\nNadine Mclnnis is the author of six books of poetry, literary criticism and\nshort fiction. She has previously won a CBC Literary Award, the Ottawa\nBook Award, and the National Poetry Contest. This poem is from Two Hemispheres, forthcoming from Brick Books in 2007.\nNatalie Onuska is a Toronto based writer and photographer. Her work\nhas appeared or is forthcoming in Descant, The Danforth Review, Prairie Fire,\nand Room of One's Own. She is currently writing her first novel, The Space\nBetween.\n77 Daniel Priest, a native of West Texas, lives for the time being on Vancouver\nIsland. His poetry has recently been included in the journals Borderlands:\nTexas Poetry Review and Red River Review, and his chapbook Dead Man was\npublished this year by Rather Small Press.\nStan Rogal was born and raised in Vancouver and now resides in Toronto.\nHe is the author of two novels, three story and nine poetry collections, with\na new novel to appear in Fall 2007 with Pedlar Press. As a playwright, he\nhas had work produced across Canada. This poem comes from a recently\ncompleted collection titled, The Celebrity Rag OPUS.\nHeather Sellers is the author of Georgia Under Water (a collection of short\nstories), several books on the craft of writing, and two volumes of poetry.\nA third collection of poetry is forthcoming from New Issues Press. She is a\nprofessor of English. Website: www.heathersellers.com\nKnute Skinner has retired from his position at Western Washington University and now lives year round in County Clare, Ireland. His most recent\nfull-length collection is Stretches, from Salmon Publishing. His collection The\nOther Shoe won the 2004-2005 Pavement Saw Chapbook Award.\nPatrick Tobin's stories and essays have appeared in many journals, including Agni, Grain, Florida Review, and Kenyon Review. He wrote the award-winning film No Easy Way; he nearly ran over Tom Cruise's dog; his stepfather\nand stepsister are from Alberta; he lives in Long Beach, California with his\nhusband,Joe.\nAnn Graham Walker is a freelance journalist, and former CBC radio producer. Her poetry has been published in Voices Down East, Gaspereau Review, Windfire Anthology and Leaf Press's Monday's Poem series. She is\ncurrently a graduate student in Goddard College's MFA/Creative Writing\nprogram, working on her novel about growing up in Argentina: The Girl in\nthe Garden.\nStephanie Yorke is an undergraduate English/Creative Writing student at\nthe University of New Brunswick. Her poetry has been featured in QWERTY\nand The Fiddlehead, and her short plays have appeared in the NotaBle Acts\ntheatre festival.\n78 The Creative Writing Program at U.B.C.\nThe University of British Columbia offers\nboth a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and\na Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative\nWriting. The M.F.A. degree may also be\ntaken by distance education. See our\nwebsite for more details.\nStudents work in multiple genres,\nincluding: Poetry, Novel/Novella, Short\nFiction, Stage Play, Screen & TV Play,\nRadio Play, Writing for Children, Non-\nfiction, Translation, and Song Lyrics &\nL^M^^a .^^Bk'ff\nLibretto.\n1 '\u00E2\u0096\u00A0\u00E2\u0096\u00A0 \"\u00E2\u0096\u00A0\u00E2\u0096\u00A0%'\"' ^^^8\n\u00C2\u00A3 MervnCadell\nm Keith Maillard\n\u00E2\u0096\u00A0 Maureen Medved\n1^^ A FOiCllltV ^ Andreas Schroeder\n1 '(L_ ^V Linda Svendsen\nw\nm Pe\u00C2\u00A3\u00C2\u00A3v Thompson\n\u00E2\u0096\u00A0 Rhea Tre\u00C2\u00A3ebov\n\^ BrvanWade\nW :a^^ Jr\nOnline Faculty (M.F.A.):\nGail Anderson-Dargatz, Brian Brett,\nCatherine Bush, Zsuzsi Gartner,\nGary Geddes, Terry Glavin,\ni tt jJ\nWayne Grady Sara Graefe,\nPeter Levitt, and Susan Musgrave.\n1 Please visit our website:\nwww.creativewriting.ubc.ca Good Reads\nBook Club\nBuy 10 General\n(non-course) Books\nat the regular price and get\n20%\nof their value\noff your next purchase of\nregular priced General Books.\nNo time limits.\nNo membership fee.\nIncludes books in-store\nand online.\nJoin at\nwww.bookstore.ubc.ca\nor at any in-store cashier.\n(604) 822-2665\nUBC BOOKSTORE\nwww. bookstore, ubc.ca\nPt. 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I'm sure\nI'd been sanctimonious: it's easy to forgive when you have an\nabsolute moral superiority over the forgiven.\n\u00E2\u0080\u0094 from \"Reunion\" by Patrick Tobin, Page 15\nRobert Brazeau\npaulo da costa\nBarry Dempster\nMary Flanagan\nAriel Gordon\nTracy Hamon\nJoelene Heathcote\nMaureen Hynes\nTyrone Jaeger\nNuno Judice\nChris Kuhn\nMichael Lista\nSusan McCaslin\nNadine Mclnnis\nDaniel Priest\nStan Rogal\nHeather Sellers\nKnute Skinner\nPatrick Tobin\nAnn Graham Walker\nStephanie Yorke\nPRISM international\nLiterary Nonfiction Contest\nJudge's Essay: Deborah Campbell\nCover Art:\n\"La Reinadel Mar\"\nby Natalie Onuska\nGENUINE\nCANADIAN\nJkl\nMAGAZINE\n02\n73DDb \" fiL3hl '"@en . "Periodicals"@en . "PR8900.P7"@en . "PR8900_P7_045_002"@en . "10.14288/1.0135390"@en . "English"@en . "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en . "Vancouver : The Creative Writing Program of the University of British Columbia"@en . 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