By the early 1950s, the town where I grew up was turning into a modern suburb of Montreal, just across the river. New streets were being carved into the surrounding farm fields of the St. Lawrence valley, but the house my parents had put a down payment on, not long before my older brother was born...
I removed my belly button and paid attention to the healing process. No one believed I could feel the hole closing over, that it reminded me of being born. My mother was laid out on the kitchen table for a week. Formaldehyde high, you never noticed when my skin blackened. I felt undesirable. You...
Reviewed by Anuja Varghese Steacy Easton, Daddy Lessons (Coach House Books, 2023), 160pp., $21.95. Content warning for childhood sexual abuse Steacy Easton’s memoir in “lessons” opens with a prologue that pulls no punches. Referring to the book, they state bluntly: “This is pornography in the sense...
Her body was part-whale, part-mouse—behold the lie! It lives in your belly. Like an unborn baby you mould the lie. Slice my ears with the jagged stars. What did you ever do with the gift of music? I buried the violin and told the lie. This lamp in the ocean. A wolf with feathers for fangs. The...
The ringmaster thinks about the words work and pride and feels nothing. Glowing tubes writhe and pulse through colours as they pass over the audience, who scream or laugh or noiselessly gape up into their futures. One tube pauses above the ringmaster, changing to match the black and purple of his...
I don’t really have a preference. Which name you use. The coffee beans. Fonts or flowers or flavors. Except when it comes to bubbles. Keep my water flat, I don’t need it to be interesting. I’d prefer not to say—that’s a preference. I’d prefer to stay—that’s a...
