1. They Say Fish Donât Feel Pain As a new intake, Iâm ushered through a maze of clinical rooms, a noisy lunchroom and a bustling gym. Joanne, the program coordinator, shepherds me, waiting as I shuffle with my cane and pelvic brace. We end at a darkened room set apart from the rest of the...
There was no book on how to girl. I read all the books about animals at the library. When my mother gave me a book on puberty, I drew penises. I became track suits, jean jackets, short hair. My bones grew. In the city, I swirled caught without ponds, between asphalt and decay. My friends were boys...
I know you will make your own way in the world.The way you favour linen and leather, and walk like a boy.Your teeth are like pomegranate seeds, sucked clean.Your motorcycle helmet unleashes copper strands.You do exist. The way you bathed me in mud, adding champagne and orchids.I flogged you with...
Marjan Every year, for two weeks in mid-May, the city is struck by cherry blossom fever. In April, the city waits on the edge of spring, which should be soft like rabbit ears or tulips. More often, spring in the city is sharp, the mornings still mean and frostbitten, the grey dusks prickling with...
There are tiny, quick spiders that live in my curtains. Sometimes they die, shrivelling in silk folds. I killed one once in a moment of fear, interrupting a key sequence of events, like the man who rescued a baby songbird that fell from a nest onto Queen Street, hand fed her mealworms and suet for...
I watch your mother stroll through her garden. She moves like you and I imagine us here togetherâyears from nowâharvesting sweet melons and mobola plums for our daughters. We follow her cautiously, just close enough to brush arms every third step. Wading in and out of the tide between us...
