UPROOTED

UPROOTED fall 2019 volume 7

Cov Max er Art McK erlie

rs to s c ck re or Di Edit otni da & ica B uha els ad ass ron Ve ika C e C n r Je theri Ca He

Copy E Abby S ditor tevens on

The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. Its contents do not reflect the opinion of the University Students’ Council of the University of Western Ontario (“USC”). The USC assumes no responsibility or liability for any error, inaccuracy, omission, or comment contained in this publication or for any use that may be made of such information by the reader.

ad Sh of irle Gr Gr y J aph ap ian ic hi Br c D g s i d e Sa ge s ig l So ly G t Ko ne rs z Tif phie otlie a fa ny Wu b Lin

1

Narcissus: a man who fell in love with his own image, reflected in the waters of a spring, and died pining for it. His story doesn’t quite end with him; we, like Narcissus, are fixated on our own image. Though this applies to the grander “we”, this tendency of humanity is seen even in the micro-world of ICON. All of our issues have revolved around the human experience: human creations from conceptions of identity, to trends of artificiality, to narratives and mythologies. We are confined within the limits of our own eyes.

UPROOTED asks for a stepping outside and into the natural world, but it also asks more of us than that. This issue requires the gaze of an outsider.

To the extent that we can, we must cross those aforementioned limits and move into a different space of seeing. It is only with fresh eyes that we can unveil the state of nature and our relationship with her.

Our story begins with the embers of power. Anthony Tan’s “The First Fire” delves harshly into the thrill of discovery, its allure and ability to bring to godliness those who are otherwise not so. Tan’s fire is a thing of nature: bold and lawless, kindled by the world of clouds or meteors. Our fires today burn metallic, ignited by hands and code. Technology is an endless discovery with promise of endless power. In Margaret Huntley’s “Don’t Look Too Closely”, echoes of history are replayed and amplified to reveal how such power manifests in defining the natural. Just as we build new fires, we piece together understandings of what can and cannot be, wielding the concept of the unnatural to cut the parts of our environment deemed unfit. It is a natural selection in which we are nature herself, the subject and object simultaneously.

It's easy to get lost in our constructions, to forget that we are part of the natural world and only one mere piece of it all. The sublime is hidden in the mundane, and we are left forgetful of its greatness. But there is coexistence in everything. Boundless domination is not possible for humanity, because the earth is not dependent on us in the way we are on her. Chelsea Hitchen’s An Empath’s Phalanx illustrates a coexistence that is in dreamy harmony, coloured in one peaceful blue from the woman at heart to the trees and animals that surround her. Lela Burt’s collages depict a different coexistence, one in which ubiquitous human waste attempts to camouflage itself in the natural landscape. We only have to step so close to see that the bird’s nest is made of plastic bags.

Just as a seed drops and blooms into a flower, humans come and grow on this planet with no set instructions on how to root in the soil. We simply are. But just as homeostasis is the fated goal of the body, the world is wired toward balance. We uproot parts of the earth, and she will adapt. We uproot ourselves from the earth, and still, she will adapt, but it may be the last steps we ever take.

UPROOTED is Narcissus’s spring. We must look not to admire but to see—our image, contextualized wholly in nature and her reflective waters. Perhaps an understanding of this relationship of which we are not the centre is possible still. Dive in, and don’t forget to come up for air.

Love, Veronica, Jerika, & Catherine

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4 6

Photos

by Jacqueline Jiaying The First Fire

by Anthony Tan Photo

by Jacqueline Jiaying Hibernation

by Nara Monteiro

8 10 12 14 16

18 20

Organic Misanthropy

by Lela Burt

Don’t Look Too Closely

by Margaret Huntley Youthful Reflection

by Payton Hayes Photo

by Veronica Botnick

22

Taking, Giving Root

by Reilly Knowles One-on-One Instruction

by Chehalis Newbound

Collages

by Lela Burt

Art

by Jacqueline Chen

Seagulls in the Parking Lot

by Julia McCarthy

A Fisherman Observes

by Anthony Tan

Loves Me Not

by Jack Bradley

24

Perennial

by Mackenzie Desbiens Between the Tree Rings

by Kristen Cote

Glass Houses

by Mia Sutton

26

Photo

by Abbie Faseruk An Empath’s Phalanx

by Chelsea Hitchen The World

by Nara Monteiro

Art

by Jacqueline Chen

Je Me Souviens

by Mia Sutton Art

by Max McKerlie

28

Full Dark

by Gabrielle Drolet Surround

by Tasneem Lalva

Winter Sun

by Reilly Knowles Looking Glass

by Breton Lim Art

by Sally Gotlieb

Art by STEPHANIE FATTORI

3

THE FIRST FIRE photos by JACQUELINE JIAYING

4

I have watched you as you squatted by the river passing water squinting by a bushy brow upon the antelope that falters.

Skin and bleed and mash the meat and wrap the fur around the bone; sleep and dream and yawn and eat and chisel every flinty stone.

This was your dominion.

For sun and dust and moon and rain below the sky, above the grass within a cave upon a plain.

Will it ever be the same?

Tell me, in the name of pain: Is it true, this history of a creature shivering alone, in thunder whimpering And if it is, can it then be truly I who has been tamed?

I do not remember Every vowel is an ember and every consonant is a snapping of the flame.

Perhaps it was the wind at dawn Perhaps it was a cloud among the stars; perhaps a meteor came crashing through the night.

Yes, the light upon the lidded eye!

Now crashing: now a shriek of a spear upon a hill in a line as bright and red as joy and lasting longer even still as the fire, oh the fire climbing higher, ever higher By the meadow, past the briar Is a sun upon the night.

In the dark, a cry.

Take the leaves, dry the leaves below the twilight of the trees; if you are hungry most let the furry things roast.

Take the fire, from the fire by the wheat and wood and shire Burn the heathens flare uneven over stone and brick and glass Think of the maps Do not relapse; enlighten every road and home Think of the towns Do not slow down; burn everything from Ur to Rome Breathe in the steam. Flash smoke as in a dream.

And the fire, oh the fire spiral higher, miles higher as if it were a gyre, or a falcon or a scream.

I can scarce believe In the turning of the Eve and the Adam, break the Adam by a mushroom plumed in dust is a sun upon the sea.

You. Destroyer.

Grasp the world Fingers curl Watch the light as it unfurls and taste the ashes as they fall.

Who it was When it was Why and how and where it was Does it matter At all?

I was the first I am the last And every flicker comes to pass And who the fire, when the fire, is the fire, of the fire, And the fire, and the fire and the fire and the fire and the fire and the fire and the fire and the fire

text by ANTHONY TAN

5

text by NARA MONTEIRO photo by JACQUELINE JIAYING

Here you are, right on time: much too early.

My muscles are malleable, I beg them: rigoricize, morticize, come on.

The smell of the furling Earth putrefies but my nostrils are flaring sinuses burning like saltwater balking back up my body (but we’re landlocked, so somebody had to have put it there).

I’m waiting for the wrinkles to stitch together and the mucus membranes to meld.

It has happened before, and it will happen again, but just another breath of air first— please— put me to bed with a mouthful of sky.

6

ORGANIC MISANTHROPY Sometimes I crave disconnection. to become a mossy sphagnum hill of peat where soil grows synonymous with skin and stars in their milky brilliance embody infinite hope I search for substance in nautical dusk. reaching out grasping fistfuls of weighted darkness, bathing in night’s ebony, and washed clean by the charcoal sky I long to be captured by the earth. to be recharged by tree roots and read their rings like textured tarot cards folded in centuries of splintered seasons I yearn for the clarity of glacial tarns. for the icy runoff to flush out stuffed spirits floating free of conscious desire, fully submerged, yet unable to drown I obsess over the silence of sediments. geology speaking a soundless language of gentle erosion / a sand paper honing edges with the ebbing and flowing of time I beg for the freedom of rolling hills. like a wanderer embraced by the fog, kissed by sea spray, and forgotten amongst vibrant ferns in conversation Tonight I am reunited with the stars. a shared quintessential kiss between points quantumly entangled sharing one space across immeasurable distance

text by LELA BURT

7

SEAGULLS IN THE PARKING LOT

It was 6:00am on a Saturday, and a surprise chill hung in the air as Samuel Sterling parked his 2007 Honda Fit. A fine film of mist hung over the parking lot.

The lot was connected to a hideous grey cinderblock of a building: the East Village Mall.

Sam worked in one of the forty-six office suites on the second and third floors.

At 6:13am, Sam still sat in his car, the windows fogged up. Autumn had come late this year. It crept into town just last week, when migrating birds began to scythe through the sky like arrows. Sam had only noticed fall’s arrival because the old aspen outside his house had lost all its leaves in one night, as if the leaves had suddenly caught fire and the branches dropped them as a reflex.

Sam popped the glove compartment and took out a crumpled carton of cigarettes. He only smoked when he was nervous. Considering he had been called in on a Saturday, Sam felt he had every right to one today.

Sam stepped out of the car to light his cigarette and heard the shrill cry of seagulls. There wasn’t a body of water for miles around this town.

The mist was lower now, concealing the granite lot. Sam looked up and saw at least fifty blue-white sea birds circling overhead. They cried out to each other in shrill riddles, giving no thought to their observer. One of the gulls occasionally swooped into the mist to grab a crumb from a hamburger or an insect feeding on weeds in the asphalt. Several gulls rested on dormant parking lot flood-lights. They flew in the shadow of that cinderblock of a building. But, if Sam squinted, the picture changed. He was on a beach in New Brunswick. Mist covered the Atlantic Ocean; the water was hotter than the frigid morning air. The cinderblock looked like a mountain, shading the beach from the autumn sun. And the gulls weren’t foraging in a parking lot, they were fishing— diving into the water to scoop up minnows.

8

Sam breathed in the salty ocean air. He saw a young boy running up the beach ahead of him, chasing the seagulls.

Sam opened his eyes and was smacked in the nose by the East Village Mall. It wasn’t a mountain, but a perfectly calculated eye-sore, so repulsive that you had to go inside to get away from it. And the mist did not conceal the endless ocean, just flat, uneven granite. Yet the gulls circled far above, screaming and laughing and dancing in the breeze. Maybe they thought it was the beach and not a tarpit. Maybe they didn’t care.

Sam’s thoughts stayed on that sunny beach in New Brunswick as he rode the escalator to his office block. He remembered how soft the sand was when you fell. He remembered how much it hurt to fall on concrete, as his boss chastised his lacklustre job performance. He remembered how that little kid believed that if he caught a seagull he might be able to fly, as he solemnly packed up his desk. He remembered the long walk from the beach house, down the driveway to the family van; the van that brought him home again. Away from the beach, the gulls, the promise of flight. Away from this job he had held for the last five years, into the parking lot, towards his 2007 Honda Fit. Sam threw his box of knick-knacks into the passenger seat. He eyed that crumpled carton sitting on the dashboard. One more for the road? Overhead, a gull screeched and dove. It landed on a painted-white line beside him and scooped up its meal. For a moment, just a second or half-second, it looked at him. Then it took off again, on wings that seemed too big for its little body.

Sam tucked the cigarettes into the glove compartment. The mist finally dissipated, and the 7:02am sun cast the grey-black asphalt into stark relief. Across the lot, another car pulled in, frightening away the gulls picking at an old muffin wrapper. Sam drove away from the cinderblock building with seagulls in the parking lot. He found himself smiling as he watched those gulls circle in his rearview mirror. As he zoomed away along the quiet Saturday streets, he could have sworn he was flying.

collages by LELA BURT text by JULIA MCCARTHY

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photo by JACK BRADLEY

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art by MACKENZIE DESBIENS

11

BETWEEN THE TREE RINGS

If it were a story about you­—

T

here is a forest where you can find stories written in the stumps of trees.

Everyone knows if you cut down a tree and count the rings you can find out the age of the tree.

In this forest you get more than a year. You can get a whole story written in between the rings of a tree.

Perhaps it is the squishy crumbling soil that blankets the forest floor. Or maybe there is something in the rain. Something sweet-tasting and cool that feeds the soil that feeds the trees.

Or maybe it is the people buried deep, deep in the ground where the roots of these trees tangle between rib cages and burrow into skulls.

Maybe that’s where the stories come from: from the skulls, to the roots, to the trees.

The forest is shrouded in fog and protected by mist.

Fog is disorienting; it can turn a person in circles and makes shadows into menacing monsters.

But in the end fog is just vapour, and not even poisonous vapour. It is just water. To escape fog, you only have to keep walking or wait for the sun to rise and burn it all away.

Here is the question: Here is the conundrum:

If it answered that question, that one question that like a weed has been growing in your lungs— If the answer to that question was written in the rings of a tree, would you grab an axe?

Would you heave, sweat rolling down your back, your arms, and into your eyes?

Would you flinch as the tree crashed against the forest floor?

Would you cover your ears in guilt and shame because if you don’t hear the tree fall then maybe you never really cut it down?

The stories written between the rings of trees run in circles.

If you ever cut down a tree with a story inside, you should know to start from the edge and work your way in, counterclockwise.

Who is to say what would be more beautiful: A graveyard with prose scribbled on the stumps. An undead library.

Or The living, towering, woods with secrets hidden in every tree.

Who is to say which is more life-giving: the trees and their air, or the stories and their love. We are being strangled of both. We are gasping for either.

Would you cut down a living tree to get to the story inside?

Here is a story from one of these stumps: One day a woodsman came into these woods (are you surprised it was a man?)

If it were the best story you would ever hear in your life, an epic that would stir your blood, a drama that would settle in your bones—

He had heard of the truth found in between the rings from birds, or from the stars.

12

Gossips, the lot of them.

So he picked a tree. The biggest tree (he was a man remember?) and he heaved his axe.

Sweat rolled down his back, his arms, and into his eyes.

He killed that tree.

He revealed this story to the air.

Can you imagine his rage? His anger when he found out the words written in between the rings of the tree were written in a language he couldn’t read?

He tried to burn it down. Turn the whole forest to ash. No more life-giving trees or prose, just choking, smoking ash.

And he did. For a while, all that remained was the charred remains of forest stories.

And then after many rainfalls and many sunrises, eventually saplings started to grow.

You start from the edge of a ring when you read the story in a tree. That means that the words in the first ring, the very centre, the ring that means “year one” are the last words. The tree tells the story in reverse as it grows. It starts from the ending and every year adds a new ring towards the beginning.

The saplings in this new wood are growing and moving every year ever closer to the beginning of their stories.

There is a forest where you can find stories written in the stumps of trees.

text by KRISTEN COTE

photo by ABBIE FASERUK

13

14

The woman at the centre of the world needs waking.

When did you last hear from her?

I think my mum knew her.

Somebody who looked like her passed me on the street, years ago.

I think she babysat me once.

Something made me think of her, just the other day…

The woman at the centre of the world likes purple and cloud watching.

We must call her, for the days of lions and men have passed out of the clouds. We must call her, for men riding eagles and rams thunder toward the Earth.

The woman at the centre of the world needs waking for if she has the strength to move the planet, then surely she can move us.

I have room for her if she needs a place to stay.

I’ll make dinner.

I’ll bring her clothes.

The woman at the centre of the world needs waking.

You know where she is.

Th e Worl d

text by NARA MONTEIRO art by CHELSEA HITCHEN

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16

art by REILLY KNOWLES

Looking Glass Ethereal veil draped over bamboo ladder— seashells littered the sand by its feet, and dried vermillion coral starfish splayed amongst the Conch, and the Ribbed cantharis, sun-bathing­— on display for the guests. Ten, pink little toes dipped in bottomless pool, like chilled, fine wine.

Canon ball dive into the autumn numb; Prussian, and cobalts, cerulean blues— eyes wide open; just a blur of blues.

Happy-8th-Birthday banner strung amongst the palm trees who watched her grow, Hot tub, a pot of tea, and the pool man who came running with a pufferfish blown and dried, placed in the tub, and sat floating in circles with googly eyes crossed. She imagined a smile across his pokey pucker; a stone tied with a string to hold him down to float forever— Mother’s handmade Nemo piñata: perfect mannequin hanging above his head.

Soiled bare-feet running amok, she gallivanted through her father’s land crawled through windows to dance on oak slabs, and stole the keys to the big empty villas right out of the bell boy’s navy-trim, back butt pocket.

Stray cats with knowing chartreuse eyes, spied her padding by— Their fine, grey hairs growing wild from their ears, twitched their witchy cat-sense-twitch sensing unease ooze from her impish form.

Their pupils dilated, lids squinted in suspicion Clogged sewage, torrential rains: swimming pools everywhere.

text by BRETON LIM art by SALLY GOTLIEB

17

DON’T TOO It is like a farmer sorting through their livestock. Those that will continue to be of use may live. But the weak have to be put out of their misery, as it is not economically sensible to keep them alive. It is not a pleasant task to kill the lame. No one ever claimed it was. But it is necessary. I am a good man doing a good job.

You cannot let them suffer trying to do work they are incapable of. You cannot let them ruin themselves and consequently our society’s progress.

It is a waste of time and resources to keep them around. So it is my job to sort through them as they arrive.

Everyone looks as we hear the first train of the morning approaching.

Luckily, the screeching of the train coming to a halt temporarily drowns out the terrible wailing from inside the cars. The doors are opened and the scent quickly overtakes my nostrils.

Other officers prod them off like cattle and line them up for me to sort.

Females to the left, they are fragile.

Infants to the left, they are ignorant.

This one to the left, it is too thin. This one to the left, it is too short. This one to the left, it is pregnant. This one to the left, it is ill. And so is this one. Left. Left. Left.

18

The majority of this car was brought to the left, which makes my job more time-consuming. My colleague and I direct them to their destination.

They move slowly. They appear as if they are exhausted. You can tell by gazing just underneath their eyes.

You cannot look them directly in the eye or they may appear human. That will make the job much, much harder.

Their eyes will deceive you like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, appearing innocent but with destructive motives. Their only intention is to devastate our country and our people. That cannot be allowed. They must work for the country or be put to the left. You cannot let yourself be fooled by their pleading gaze. But you can look just under their eyes. Underneath their eyes, it is dark and puffy from a lack of rest. They will rest soon.

My colleague is not as lenient as I am when spit on. The whole group must pause as my colleague beats one to a pulp. It is not a pleasant sight, but a necessary one. They have to respect us. We are good men. We are helping our country. It is necessary that they respect us. When my colleague finishes, he demands it to get up. It does not even try. Others attempt to bring it to its feet. It becomes apparent that it is dead. We leave it there for someone else to remove. After that, the others are not disrespectful.

LOOK CLOSELY We arrive at our destination. Murmurs of questions arise amongst them as to what we are doing at this building.

Where did the people on the right go? And what is that smell? I tell them they are that smell. That is why we are at this building, to wash them. These are the showers. Take off your clothes. Take off your shoes.

Like fools they obey. They take off their clothes. Then they take off their shoes.

I point to the chamber door. I tell them inside are the showers and everyone must go at once for efficiency’s sake.

Some are reluctant but the louder my colleague yells the faster they file inside. Good, they are respecting us.

It is about time. We are good men.

One collapses at my feet. Unsure if it is unconscious or already dead, I decide not to take any risks and kick it into the chamber. Some fall and are trampled. Though I suppose at this point it does not matter.

Another group joins us. They too remove clothes and shoes. One complains the chamber is not big enough. That is not true. We cram them in. Mere skeletons coated in a layer of skin, completely inhuman.

Except for their eyes.

Just as we think we are ready to close the door I hear a cough in the corner of the room. Hiding behind heaps of clothes is one straggler. They truly are unintelligent. Where did it think it would go after we burned the pile?

Frustrated, I stomp over; the next train will be here soon. I grab the straggler by the arm. It begins to cry.

It begs. It pleads.

“Please don’t do this! We’re not animals!”

I make eye contact with it.

I look immediately away, thrusting its tiny frame towards the showers.

It begs like a human, but it is not human. I strengthen my grip and pull.

“Please put yourself in my shoes,” it repeats as it is pulled closer to the door. Its bare heels are pathetically trying to dig themselves in with strength they no longer have.

It turns to face me just as it reaches the doorway. This time I avoid the eyes and look at its dark circles. I do not give the beast the dignity of a response.

I slam the door closed.

Soon after, the gas is poured in. I thought looking in their eyes made the job unpleasant. But listening to their screams makes it worse. I drown the sound out with the voice in my head reassuring me that I am a good man.

text by MARGARET HUNTLEY

19

Within the bigger River emerged a smaller patch of ripples.

With elbows high, they flowed, not up,

not down, but across, sidestepping the crowd as it walked as one.

One may think that these strangers, odd in their ways, would be turned away by the River; greeted with a compulsory wave, only to be forced down to the bot tom of the bend.

But, the rest of the River didn’t seem to mind.

It was as if they were remembering a time when they too were new.

When they too pushed against the seemingly relentless seams of the River, teal ribbons in their wake, carving out their place in the world.

text by PAYTON HAYES

20

Youthful Reflection

photo by VERONICA BOTNICK

21

A man once taught me that to tame something is to crush it.

He explained as he worked.

You must grip it by its core and squeeze out any dripping excess.

It’s the challenge of it all, you see. How much you can stomach. A great achievement, to have taken a wild thing and reduced it, simmering, to a thick sludge to pour over your steak and really savour.

art by REILLY KNOWLES text by CHEHALIS NEWBOUND

ONEonONEinstruction 22

Look to the ships: they trace the sky in lines of gray and spotty white In tails of smoke like fishing lines against the dying of the light.

Between the glitter of their skins a swarm ferments, and though the rays are bright, the sunshine cannot warm what lies within. Upon my gaze the pixels flash; the screen goes black Such is the fate of shiny things— a death a lifetime overdue— I leave the house. The sunlight stings.

Beyond the edges of the town the road fades into mud and murk.

The tops of buildings stagger odd within the waters. Here I lurk between a huddle of the dead Titanic bones whose shadows throng above the sea—the fishes here will not be here for long.

I cast my line and fix upon the windows laced in mossy coat; between the glass, amidst the green, there sits an old man in a boat.

He looks as if he soon will starve, and as if that is not enough, beyond the tremble of his hand there lies a bloodstain on his cuff.

His lungs are black; his body shakes as cough by cough is drawn and cast in starts and stops. Each moment pulls to push the next—to stay the last.

And so the sun in dapple falls to blot the sky in copper hue.

Above the clouds, there should be stars and in their glow, the chosen few whose months will toss and turn and spill in cryogenic fugue, in dream will rise and bloom and then emerge— in waking, weary eyes will gleam.

We cannot help but hunger for the ripples of a fresher fin— the riches of a solar tide— and so by dusk, the bites begin.

And so in dawn, we cast again to bait the stars and multiply: To smoke a world in salt and flame and bleed another ocean dry.

Alas—the line twitches.

I ease the fellow in.

A wriggling little fish with scales of burnished tin.

a fisherman observes art by JACQUELINE CHEN text by ANTHONY TAN

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GLASS HOUSES

text by MIA SUTTON art by JACQUELINE CHEN

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A small stretch of Carolinian forest mirrored in wide windows, clear blue cut through with echoes of oak, constructed sky in a bird’s eye.

Northern Parula caught by building’s glass jaw drops from false horizon—white streaks, clouds on its broken wings.

Listen—for a sharp chirp, for a sweet warble, strain of liquid notes— Birds sit hunched in the creased corners of ziploc graves.

A robin hangs weightless, stretching its plastic crypt, tail feather fringe pressed into the purple stripe of the baggie’s seal, calico speckled chest telling you, it’s not even a year old.

Find the young ones, crumpled heaps, limp necks among the saplings.

Find just a smush of molting feathers in the wet grass, tiny bones crushed by a mower, fractures scattered, jigsaw skeleton, a framework of thin enamel.

The eyes are windows to the skull.

Ants crawl in and out of a necklaced warbler’s socket.

Listen—for glass shattering—for glossy shards finding mower’s teeth, jamming its jaw— for Parula’s wishbone scaffolding re-fusing— for coracoid finding farcula finding keel finding pectoralis finding skin muscles finding unobstructed sky—clear blue cut through with stretching oak—

hear nothing.

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JE ME SOUVIENS text by MIA SUTTON

Antoine takes us to Havre—haven. We duck under a thick metal chain, a black sign hanging from it— “privee.” We sit sur les roches and read Je Me Souviens. I can’t hear the words over the waves, so I sketch at the bottom of the page, finding the shape of the rocks with my pen. A single stanza holds my eye, one of the few I can translate:

La nuit est longue et sans plis // The night is long and without folds

La nuit est longue et sans plis // The night is long and without bends La nuit est longue et sans plis // The night is long and without creases La nuit est longue et sans Sudainment // The night is long and without Suddenly—

Hannah finds a bigger rock for us to sit on—to write our own poems. We leaf through a pocket dictionary, trying to translate man-bun and skinny legs for her ode to Antoine. I mistranslate sea foam—mousse sounds better than écume—before searching for home in creased pages. There’s house, dwelling, habitat, residence, but home is impossible.

Sapin, bardane, bourgeon, tronc, scorbut—I collect words I can only pronounce, sketch plants I can’t name or even recognize. I collect pissenlit from David’s first ecology workshop. He gives us the English word without speaking English—linguistic contortions.

Dent, he says. He taps his dirt smudged nail against his tooth. Dent, he repeats, de lion. He writes the piece-meal word on the board. Dent-de-lion. Dandelion.

I’ll learn later that dandelion is latin for lion’s tooth—or dent de lion—and that the plant was named for its

deeply toothed leaves, each floret of its many-flowered head notched into five ligules—tongues. I’ll learn that lions have three kinds of teeth to tear and rip and cut, that their tongues scrape meat from bones, dirt from fur.

I’ll learn from a Facebook post David shares that Bar Chez Boogie will be sold the following November, odeur de popcorn included. I will wonder if the new owner will know how to pour un marteau, a shot of peppermint and winter air that hits like the hammer it’s named for. Will they keep the pool table? Will the green felt remember me dancing on it—stupid drunk—that last night in Trois-Pistoles?

26

I keep returning to Havre. I keep returning to the poem I can’t write, searching in English and French for the things I want to remember.

I remember the clink of the metal chain. My ankles rolling on the steep stoney hill. The wind’s bite. I remember laughter. The crunch of empty beer cans. The sharp glare of the sun. The hardness of the rocks under me. The spray and the stench of the Saint Lawrence. I remember trying to memorise every etch, scuff, and line of the craggy beach.

I find a poem in three French words and take it with me to Quebec City, through the turquoise door of Tatouage Toutankhamon. The machine’s quick teeth sink in and out of my skin, depositing ink in jagged bursts. I wait for the sharp bite, but it doesn’t come—no incisor grip. Toothy leaves and ligules give way to seed fluff, planting with a gentle buzz into the ticklish skin stretched over my ribcage.

art by MAX MCKERLIE

27

Full Dark Not to get political (no one likes when I do) but I would like to talk about nighttime.

I saw a shooting star for the first time last winter. I spent a childhood wishing on helicopters and cell towers, on every blinking light in the distance. Anything looks like a star if it’s far enough away. I did not know that they were not genuine.

Lies. Lies and a grief.

You never know something isn’t real until the true version reveals itself, undresses quietly while you watch.

Not to get political, but I wish I’d seen a shooting star sooner. Sometimes, in the haze of late night, I’ll point up and say look.

But I know that I’m wrong. I know about the cars and the smog.

I know stars don’t live here, where I do — only helicopters and blinking lights.

text by GABRIELLE DROLET

28

photo by TASNEEM LALVA

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