The Veg Literary Magazine 2020 Annual Edition

THE VEG LITERARY T H E MAGAZINE 2 0V 2 0 IES S U G E LITERARY MAGAZINE

T H E V E G

LITERARY MAGAZINE

2020 issue vol. 18 no. 1

The Veg Literary Magazine is funded by the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) of McGill University. The content of this publication does not necessarily represent the views of the AUS or McGill University. veg.magazine@gmail.com facebook.com/thevegmagazine printing by

Dear Reader, It was March when the Veg last met in person. It was as it always was–– we gathered around the minarets of depanneur wines and discussed the launch party we expected to have. Can you blame us? We were still stumbling blindly into the new year. We were drunk on the zephyr. Over wine and popcorn we discussed the crop of submissions until our lips and teeth were red.

There is no need to explain what happened. We’re old friends, and we’ve all heard too much about it. Let’s skip until now… to this thing you hold in your hands, or view with tired eyes on the computer screen. Welcome. In this hulking leaflet, we’ve combined the submissions from last winter and those from this fall. Poems of a new consciousness stand by those of the old, and perhaps they’re equally confused… one thing feels true: it is good to hear your voice.

Let us make sense of these fragments together: a scene from a play; a slant of winter light; a piece of mail from Mexico City. As it is now we’re all dispersed, ourselves fragmented. So we offer you this scrapbook of crossedout words. We hope that wherever you’ve wound up, you find little bits of yourself scattered in its pages.

With love, Julie, Sophie, + The Veg

editors: Will Barry Julie Demet Jason Gales Sophie Garnett Kyla Ion Hannah Kirijian Lulu Lebowitz Sean Sokolov

contents untitled

maya watt

horses want hay for

aaron kingon

breakfast

cover inside cover

the fountain

katherine dick

5

a note written in

hannah kirijian

6

nicky swanson- hutchison

7

the absence of hammock leg

best $1.49 popcorn on island kaylina kodlick

8

garden lemon lobster

kaylina kodlick

9

sarah’s house

georgia maxwell

10

train fare

bryn manns

13

andrew

aaron kingon

14

untitled

josie bitter

15

the life is in the blood

audrey michel

16

nesters

bryn manns

17

a whisper

mauricio saldaĂąa

18

submission email

mauricio saldaĂąa

19

man is an island 1

chloe gordon-chow

20

man is an island 2

chloe gordon-chow

21

the sleeping dogs

daniel belshaw

22

vincent & i

serene mitchell

24

under your skin, the stars

tazi rodrigues

25

fleck

asa brunet-jailly

26

the breakfast table

damian fitz

29

upper cherry

aaron kingon

30

track changes 6

hannah kirijian

31

old 1

sarah krier

32

amelie l.

sarah krier

33

nightmares

t.g. simon

34

cats

laura brennan

35

blackberry

aaron kingon

36

the unicorn hunt

audrey michel

37

thinking of babel

holly wethey

38

untitled

dylan rekers

40

summer haze

cyrus jordan

41

sunbathing

bryn manns

42

the milk of human

india gaer

43

kaylina kodlick

44

donald mccarthy

45

hill house

loretta st. laurent

46

yvonne

katherine dick

48

skeleton dog

katherine dick

49

exactly where they

gabriel jamieson

50

tamsui river 2019

serene mitchell

52

obasan’s mailbox

serene mitchell

53

get thee to a

sarah lofti

54

aidan and chair

bryn manns

56

lone tree at north

nicky swanson hutchison

57

fragments

gavin harrison

58

klizzie

aaron kingon

65

kindness obaachan dancing with my aqua zumba class the yard: viscera behind buzzing teeth

needed to be

university: a faust variation

beach

the fountain

katherine dick

5

a note written in the absence of, my love, to write is to,

relocate your touch.

I will take your notes and place rice paper upon

them.

Following the curves in your words, I find your palms against my thigh.

Returning, finally, to your broken single bed.

hannah kirijian 6

hammock leg

nicky swanson hutchison

7

kaylina kodlick

best $1.49 popcorn on island

8

kaylina kodlick

garden lemon lobster

9

sarah’s house

I didn’t want to go to the party and Tom picked a fight. I said it didn’t matter if we did anything for New Years and he accused me of being too good for his friends. He didn’t understand what had changed: I’d been all excited about the thing until I found out it was at Sarah’s house. I’d been to Sarah’s house before. Once, over the summer. She’d had us for a barbeque. Behind her house, Sarah had a lovely backyard surrounded by a garden with a small patio and a hose-fed pond. She laughed and told us about how they would always forget to fill it up and kept killing their expensive show fish. I thought this was very funny because I also had once accidentally killed a fish. She grilled us chicken except she accidentally undercooked it. The inside was very pink, or so I was told. I’m a vegetarian. Tom was worried that night he was going to get salmonella and I told him he was fine. “Easy for you to say, all you ate were the flatbreads” he retorted before he induced nausea as a preventative measure.

“I hope you’ll still want to get together, even though I tried to murder you” she said to me the next day. Sarah was very funny. Much funnier than Tom and I.

When it was still sunny outside, Sarah gave us a tour of her house. At one point in time, it had been the stables for a mansion down the street. Our house had always been just a house. The renovations had been very well thought out. The front of Sarah’s house had very few windows and the back was only windows. This made it so that not just anyone could look in, yet Sarah still got lots of sun. And more importantly, she got a view of her beautiful garden. The only thing Sarah didn’t like about her house was that you had to turn the lights off at night if you were in the backyard. Or you’d get blinded. I saw what she meant when her husband came home and flicked on the kitchen lights. I squinted my face like I was in a blizzard and Sarah threw a shoe at the window. Her husband jumped ten feet in the air. Then he gave her the finger. He was funny too.

“We must have given him a heart attack” Sarah laughed. “The whole wall becomes a mirror at night.” *

A compromise was found the afternoon before the party. The agreement was that I would attend if Tom would wear the suit. My sister and I had fought over who would get the old suit and I won. I had found it as we packed up the old house and took pictures for the Real Estate agent. They liked these things shiny and empty.

I wanted to pay someone to do it. I didn’t want my last memories to be of a house I didn’t know. But Tom said we couldn’t justify that sort of money and I guess he was right. I had almost tossed the old suit along with bunches of other clothes but the pattern caught my eye. The whole thing was a brown plaid, from shoulder to cuff. It was three pieces, a bit tight around the vest. My sister thought it was absolutely darling and wanted it for her husband. I had to exchange six pairs of earrings, two of which were 10

real gold, to get it. But the barter was worth it. It was worth it because I had a picture of Him wearing the suit framed in my closet. Next to him, complicit in a dance I could almost remember, She wore a green velvet dress I’d hoarded for years. The dress hung next to the transposed scene, comparatively lifeless.

The dead made Tom awkward. He was lucky. He didn’t know any. In comparison, I knew at least half a dozen. He’d been adamant he would never under any circumstances wear the old suit. He hated it. And besides, he was too skinny.

This made me rather upset until he hugged me. He stroked my hair and made me feel better but he didn’t change his mind. That is, until the afternoon of the party.

“Fine I’ll wear it if it really means that much to you. But when people laugh at me you better be the one to explain.”

That was perfectly fine by me.

The velvet dress hung quickly down my chest and slowed only at my hips.

Its straps were made of thin plastic jewels and hung lower down the back. I did my hair up in a low bun and let a strand fall down either side of my face.

“You look like you’re going to a nineties prom,” Tom shot.

“Thank you” I said with a little bow.

Tom didn’t look very good in the suit. But his attitude was more the problem than anything else.

“You look lovely,” I said with a kiss. He refused the bow tie. *

Tom brought two bottles of prosecco to the party. A bottle for him and a bottle for me. Either Tom was drinking or he wasn’t. Today, apparently, he was. I could never keep up.

“The problem with the house is that our study doesn’t have a single window” Sarah had explained to us during her tour.

“I guess that’s what we get for buying a house that wasn’t meant to be one.”

I spent the majority of the party in the study. I set up camp like it was my own boudoir. The people would come and go, talking of nothing. They would come on the way from the front hall to the back; or stop by after using the bathroom. I had found a deck of cards and kept everyone entertained. My last guest was Tom.

“What are you doing in here? Come dance with me” he sniped.

“Why don’t we dance in here?”

His look reminded me of when I didn’t get a joke. He took my arm and dragged me out to the dining room. The effect of the windows was very striking. It was almost as if Sarah had two of the exact same rooms. I tried not to look too much at first, but Tom kept turning me towards it. Finally, I gave up just like everybody else.

The more I drank, the better the scene became. The more I drank, the more I looked like everybody else. By the second half of the bottle, I liked how her dress curved around her hips. I liked how her nose tipped up as she stared at him. I liked how good 11

her thin neck looked wrapped around his thick shoulders. With each sip, the scene got better and better. With each sip, the background came into colour. The stand-ins were quite exceptional. I wondered if they really were talking, or if they were whispering elephant to each other. It must take great skill to have a silent conversation. Maybe they were all aspiring actors. The more I enjoyed myself, the angrier Tom became. That second bottle had really been for him. He really shouldn’t have banked on my not drinking and just bought a third like a normal person.

I wondered if Sarah and her husband ever dragged their lawn chairs inside and sat on top of their table. If they ever stretched out and ate popcorn. If I lived in Sarah’s house, maybe I would do the same. I suggested this to Tom but he didn’t seem to hear me. How silly I’d been. I’d missed the whole beginning. But I felt lucky to catch a bit of the end.

“You know when I was a kid” I annunciated to Tom, “I had this superstition.”

He looked down at me with those eyes I loved. “I thought the people behind mirrors could hear your thoughts. Isn’t that silly?”

“What?” Tom asked, leaning his ear towards me.

Suddenly Sarah ripped the screen. It sounded almost like Velcro. I watched her disappear behind it and into the tarry backyard. I peeled myself from Tom and followed her before it mended itself. I had to tell her about my lawn chair innovation.

Maybe she’d do it, and invite me back to Sarah’s house.

“Sarah!” I hissed. “Sarah!”

I couldn’t see where she’d gone. My eyes were squinting like I was in a snowstorm and my feet were in one.

“Sarah!” I was very careful not to fall into the pond. I held the front of my dress up like a proper lady.

“Sarah!

I was very careful not to fall in the pond as I puked into her hedge. I was very careful to hike my dress up before I knelt into the snow. I puked until a hook pierced the bottom of my stomach and pulled it out of my mouth. What they say about intestines are true. They are quite long when you unravel them. By the time I funneled everything back inside me I couldn’t feel my hands. As I looked around for my shoes, I found them.

They stood, the six of them, facing the windows. Only the two I’d been most worried about weren’t watching like the rest of them. They were dancing.

Their dance looked much better than it did in the photo. His suit looked much better around his belly than it did on Tom. And I tried to ask them how they managed to sauter their sternums together like that. But I forget what they said.

georgia maxwell 12

train fare

bryn manns

13

aaron kingon

andrew

14

untitled I like the texture of nighttime words in the daytime, now that they’re bare and subject to debate.

The opposite is not true.

What comes, comes angry.

The best arrive in half-states, scared of commitment, Perched in-between and without.

I come, not angry, but certainly not happy.

Some mushy cloud dampening the daydream, Clasping tightly onto the word but knowing it don’t mean shit.

In the pocket of some jeans I left a slip of paper to revisit someday

(though I subsequently lost both the jeans and paper) But it doesn’t matter.

Now I’m a chronic fainter and a self-proclaimed psychic, Pandering for glimpses of the future and struggling to keep conscious.

Would you believe that?

It all comes barreling in but rarely in order, now instead choosing to take us by storm.

Sometimes it lists itself, neat and tidy, contained in eggshells, straight from the factory.

(don’t you love that?)

When everything enters with permission and

ekes out its proper place.

Then it seems sizably managed.

More often than not it barrels in and I faint.

josie bitter 15

the life is in the blood Our bodies and us perched on separate couches, we fit the strangeness well All that quiet built up like a dam in my throat until I put my foot down, opened my mouth because that’s comfort, what we do on Sundays Vocal chords stringing us out on a line laid us bare, awkward, with the praise of this life flushing up our cheeks Her hands, they beat back the air in gentle waves, over and over, like they could row us home but not this Sunday, no Our voices rose to the ceiling, receiving a stamp from the heavens that sealed us up into one It was a fitting goodbye, how we took the strangeness into our mouths and closed our eyes, singing, putting familiarity back into its place just for the morning

audrey michel 16

nesters

bryn manns

17

a whisper

mauricio saldaĂąa

18

submission email Hello!

I know im too late to submit my work and I accept if im out of competition.

Anyway, here are some photographs that I would love to share in your magazine. I really appreciate the work you do and I prefer not to make excuses for sending my photos sooner, but the truth is I recently discovered the magazine, cause a friend just showed to me today the last issue.

I will be on the lookout to read the next one.

This photo is of a snowy forest where I lost myself for an hour while I was gasping for air. My head ached from the cold but I was chasing a small rodent that I could never see with the camera. What remains of that memory where I almost fainted is the incessant search for that wonderful being. However, the trail of the wind through the snow reminds me that the trivial is also beautiful.

Greetings, From Mexico City.

Mauricio SaldaĂąa, photographer

mauricio saldaĂąa 19

chloe gordon-chow

man is an island 1 20

man is an island 2

chloe gordon-chow 21

the sleeping dogs —O I am sad when I see dogs or children!

–Delmore Schwartz The day exposed to canker of the moon, Swiftly bark erodes along with the trunk.

In synchronous suggestion to the mind, The rock of vision rolls and clears the roads For the blessing of sanctuary sound, As recessed voices break away from their hosts, And pass by the wide window, where, seated, We overdream the blackened neighborhood.

With books everywhere, red orange vines Of a great rug, dark chairs, roof beams calling, Leaden swing of trees, millenium dawns.

But crack open dawn’s fruit shell we cannot.

We lack strength, and a sense of urgency.

We are young like the grass, clammy like mud.

Undoubtedly, however straight we stand, We stay well beneath our lemonade stands.

And yet, contrived tales will make us taller.

For example, in our shared neighborhood, There are several dogs at a single house.

Its sparrowy architecture slouches.

To reach, you technically traverse a lane That’s not: too sprawled and consuming and dim, Like a python’s elongated belly.

The curs surround all three road-facing sides, A peninsula of security.

My friend learns I’ve never seen them awake, And demands that I should wake them myself.

I’d rather be put to sleep forever Than some outrageous opposite with dogs; eyes forced wide, I’m scared they’ll live forever.

He rebukes by telling the following story: He and some friends visited for just this point, And he was shaking one, until hindered By some adult. He’s performed, I should now.

22

So he wilders me into tramping there.

Remember I said I’m young like fresh-grass, Unstirred by the sound of oncoming blades, And the myth of the dogs festers in me.

I imagine them more than slumbering, Limestone, fearsome only to the ancients.

This way, my hatred of the test is calmed with expectations newly obliging: I shouldn’t feel so worried, after all, To shake will be like rocking an old branch.

Too raddled to wind themselves back and strike.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want the courage, Or the facsimile undetected.

So now the unfamiliar driveway, The canines slumped and haggard by the walls.

Pushed forward, I cross sporadic grass and Rest my hand on the very first dog’s neck.

Rested dogs made us into runagates.

The owner had never paid for any fence.

One briefly caught the ankle of my friend, And was thrashed off. The lane became shorter.

My place served for invisibility.

The millenium had dawned long ago.

daniel belshaw 23

vincent & i

serene mitchell 24

under your skin, the stars your body is swelling, pushed by tides you did not ask for and do not want. tipped off by the moon, stars leak under your skin — stars, or maybe hornets their buzz incessant where you are certain they do not belong. your body is pushing against sands you want to fold into, collapse against the shores, assume a victory position most would mistake for defeat. your body, tired of fighting the tides, wants to rest. your body, tired of hiding secrets disguised as hornets, wants to rest.

tazi rodrigues 25

fleck

It was with Mel that I saw my first dead body. That day is etched on me like a scar, bumpy but painless. The air was heavy, the dampness a wet tongue licking deep into my bones. I was at her house again, looking out to the sea. When my mother started throwing plates at my father, I decided that leaving was the best option; hiding under the couch, under my bed or, once, under the bathtub, was getting old. Sitting on the soft couch in Mel’s living room made me small and stupid, and she bored me –most girls did at the time— but I could look out to the sea as her mother prepared some warm drink or buttered toast for me as I waited. The woman talked my ear off, they both did, but it wasn’t so bad. After a while, I tuned them out. Her mother never asked why I was there, nor did Mel, after the first time. Instead, Mel would sit next to me on the couch, or on the floor in front of me, and yammer on about one thing or another. One day, it was the new book she was reading, “Dragons! Do you know much about dragons? The Chinese ones are my favourite,” the next, she’d go on about a teacher at school who’d told her to stop doodling –she was always doodling. Other days, she’d take out her pictures, a variety of portraits and seascapes, a sketch of a butterfly in the garden out back, and try to get an opinion out of me. I didn’t know art, so I sat there dumbly and shrugged. Anyway, why should I care, I was only there to look out to the sea.

It was magnificent, overwhelming. Eternally vast and cold. Blue-green on sunny days and a hard, rock grey when it stormed. Thunderous waves crashed on the beach and swept up all sorts of contraptions and oddities: clumps of seaweed, the long green tendrils like scalped mermaids, but other things too, plastic bottle caps of all colours, a sock, a pair of glasses, an earring glinting in the sun like a fleck of gold in a dark mine, a book –mangled and waterlogged, illegible, despite my best attempts— a pair of underwear, a watch. When I had the chance I’d walk on the beach for as long as I could bear the cold and pocket any treasures. Sometimes I found coins if I looked hard enough. The next best was sitting on Mel’s couch and enjoying the view. I could see who was coming and going, sniffing the air, sitting on the damp sand reading, and once, fucking –a word I’d learned from my father that I wasn’t allowed to say. But that’s what they were doing, I don’t know what other word to use. From my perch at Mel’s, I saw a couple, tan and long-legged, hidden behind driftwood and a wall of sand, naked, moving together in such a way that I turned shamefaced from the window and joined Mel and her mother in the dining room. I distracted them with a story I’d learned at school, terrified that they would go to the window, see what I’d seen, and somehow blame me for it. I’d heard the tale from a teacher after trying and failing to steal a handsome marbled pen of hers. I didn’t tell Mel and her mother this misadventure of mine and they became so enthralled by the gruesome tale of the small grey boy who crept about taking things that were not his, culminating in a horrific scene where he lost each of his fingers, that the obscure reason I knew the story was forgotten. Mel’s 26

mother made the adequate sounds of fear throughout my performance, her dark puff of hair swinging to and fro with each exclamation of terror. Mel, however, keen-eyed and sitting primly on a cushion, was strangely unperturbed.

“More! I want more!”

The little girl, hair flaming out around her small, elfin face, bobbed wildly in a ridiculous pink cloud, all tulle and satin, with the billowing sleeves of some princess of a lesser-known kingdom. She clapped her small hands together, again and again, shrieking excitedly.

“Boy, am I lucky to have my own two hands with five fingers on each!

Mama, don’t you think it’s wonderful? That poor boy lost them all and here I am with ten whole fingers! Tell it again, would you?”

Her mother, still slightly green in the face, smiled weakly.

“Why don’t I make you two some lunch? To work up an appetite you can go take a walk, just don’t go near the water.”

Even my child’s mind could tell that she’d had enough of small, macabre boys but was trying her utmost to be kind to me. I was grateful for this, despite her regular digressions about salon gossip or the new pie recipe she couldn’t wait to try. I wasn’t used to the conversation that went on in Mel’s big house on the water. Meals at home were at best in strained silence that ended when one of my parents went to bed or left for the night, at worst filled with screaming and smashed things. “Women… women!” my father often snarled before disappearing in a huff. I was never sure what he was complaining about but my mother seemed to know.

Mel was already jumping up and down, eager to go on an adventure, and she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the long, carpeted hall and out the door, scarves and coats in tow. We trampled down the stairs like a small pack of buffalo on the prairie, running down the short paved alley that led to the sea. The cold, salty water sprayed us as we shuffled pink-cheeked through the sandy dunes and neared the waves. Standing there in the middle of the stretch, Mel’s hand clasped in mine, I momentarily forgot my dislike for her long-windedness and revulsive wardrobe and felt a sense of power course through me. This was a new, pulsing energy that raced through my body. It was something I’d never felt before. Looking out on the crashing waves with Mel, our palms sweaty from holding onto each other so tightly, lest we be carried off by a strong breeze, a sea god, or even a child-trafficking fisherman, I suddenly felt that I was in the right place. Here, I thought to myself, here I am at the top of the world and everything will be fine if I just carry on. I looked over at Mel and she looked at me. I noticed how many freckles there were on her small, pale face, and smiled. All was well.

“I’m cold. Can we go back now?” said Mel, shivering, mouth downturned.

Leave it to girls to ruin everything. Ignoring her, I walked a few steps farther and eyed the horizon. Only when I heard a sudden gasp did I turn around, worried Mel was drowning and that I’d be the prime suspect in her death. But she was fine, standing as she had been only seconds before, pink dress and woollen scarf beating in 27

the wind. Her mouth was ajar, her eyes wide, her eyebrows strange little half-moons.

She was gesturing at something.

“Look, over here! It’s a merbaby!”

There in the sand was a small, grey thing. The creature was dead and tangled in seaweed, with a small, crumpled grey face and tiny hands. I couldn’t help but wonder. Could it be? My head throbbed. Disgust and morbid fascination spread through me and I wasn’t sure which was winning.

“How do you know it’s a merbaby, Mel? It doesn’t even have a tail.”

“What else could it be? It looks like one to me. And anyway, merbabies only

grow tails later on, like human babies they need to be taken care of at all hours by other merfolk since they can’t swim until their tails come in.

“I swear, it’s true!” she exclaimed as she saw my raised eyebrows.

The enthusiasm arising from our discovery was cut short by Mel’s mother calling us in for lunch, and Mel brought her down to confirm the merbaby hypothesis.

Her mother’s reaction was similar to her earlier distress at my morbid story, but this time tears rolled down her face, dappling her jacket. She shooed us back up upstairs with a ferocity previously hidden under her knitted shawls and layers of makeup. Her hands were shaking. Shortly after, some men came to collect the small, grey creature.

This brought Mel to tears. She didn’t want anyone to experiment on the merbaby and cried nonstop while I ate the sandwich her mother had so carefully prepared.

The image of the creature’s tiny, motionless form was carved into me. I shivered. Mel scooted closer to me on the couch and we stared out the window to the sea. Our knees knocked together. Waves crashed outside like a battle raging.

asa brunet-jailly 28

the breakfast table Please, excuse the invading bakery Which occupies this crowded table.

Leave the croissant to their precarious tiptoe march atop fragile, Pointed limbs.

I apologize For the oozing raspberry.

My friends are messy eaters And the wounded cannot bandage themselves.

Ignore the battered chocolatine With cracked, rigor mortis spines; We always overestimate our Capacity for chocolate at this hour.

There are autumn leaves out the window, And disturbed by a lonely wind, Some fall to take their places across the lawn.

Please, take this pink pearl with peanut butter.

Will you have coffee or tea to go along with it?

damian fitz 29

upper cherry

aaron kingon

30

Sixth Poem Written After A Personal Rejection of Poetry Track Changes 6 A Letter from the Deviant Pebble Dear Poet on the horizon, This is my final note, it must be said “I am tired of your demands, I must find my own structure” I meant to be your perfect pebble smooth and soft lying in the sun.

But, last night - as you were crashing against me in the moonlight, and I was moving, yet again, with the waves, I noticed the sand.

So rough is the sea with its endless possibilities, rocking and leaking I noticed that I cannot be your perfect pebble any longer.

I can’t move with you any longer eroding until my layers are shed - modelling mind and skin to the unforgiving textures of your habit.

I will be rough and rigid, In the sun, I will glisten I will not be smooth and soft as your desires required I now must say: “Goodbye” I have decided to be free from you, now free from your form.

Sixth Poem Written After a Personal Rejection of Poetry A Letter from the Deviant Pebble on the horizon, your pebble yet again, with the waves, the sand so rough is rocking and leaking your pebble eroding your desires, now free from your form.

hannah kirijian 31

sarah krier

old 1

32

sarah krier

amalie l.

33

“nightmares” The minute little monkey clings to me in sweaty PJs Shtaime pis shtadore Breath in Breath out Breath in pis shtadore

t.g simon 34

laura brennan

cats 35

blackberry

aaron kingon

36

the unicorn hunt all night we hunted each curl of a fern, peered into its private wells. up we stuck our fingers, upended the forest and we liked it that way what was right was not in our vocabulary. our vocabulary was the horn, ivory and blowing; our vocabulary was the horn, silver and splintering we polished and brandished the plow, the ladle, the dough hook borrowed from wife, our weapons of choice to find the unicorn. the dogs bayed, we slobbered, the horn blew faster and heavier the whole forest surrendered into our laps white clad and virgin toed, I stepped towards the unicorn he looked at me twice, once to approve, once to appreciate, then hanging up his horn he bowed as grooms must when they meet the maiden, me the unicorn’s white curly chin in my hand, I took in his eyes my father, I saw my brother, grandfather, uncle, cousin and so I made my rib into a dough hook said Let the forest unfurl.

audrey michel 37

thinking of babel The sacred is not history, nor catalogue, nor genealogy.

I once read as if I needed convincing, though now I translate as if undoing, forever falling.

Living. Piercing to the division; On the one hand, the smooth alabaster of the kitchen cabinets and on the other, stone for brick, hard surface, falling short, tower.

I say my name in the mirror; I am not the unbeliever they raised, O let them be mistaken.

In the morning, the dew spells out your name; lips as soft as lilies.

And my longing is imperfect, carved into the very stone of Babel; reaching, ever reaching.

I come up to the surface for a breath, there is a brief moment where your face flickers in the clouds, living.

38

I want your flesh like I want air; word is need.

(And it will take years.)

But the pool provides a clear boundary between sky and water, piercing to the division.

I think of you as I think of poetics; word is softly.

As I blend with the pristine water, for a moment, I distract myself with other things, the things I go back to; the eternal, lilies... stone for brick‌

holly wethey 39

untitled

dylan rekers

40

summer haze

cyrus jordan

41

sunbathing

bryn manns

42

the milk of human kindness I can see from the third story of the apartment complex a sluggish park, all mottled green.

And I see the small ferret boy, an Aryan child, running, he is six years old and I know this because I’ve asked.

He plays with a shiny red ball, rushing around in pinwheels and kiss curls.

He is blond with a face like a chalky puddle, he has tiny teeth like fingernail clippings, sharp and gappy, peering from his pink mouth.

After running tirelessly for sometime he goes to his mother who sits, legs crossed on a nearby bench.

His mother is flat footed and broad, she has watery red eyes and gentle folds of flesh hang from her back, she has taught hands with swollen fingers, tipped in a frosted pink.

She uncrosses her legs and the child gropes his way onto her knee, scrabbling feverishly, his small sweaty palms like sticky marzipan fumble at her blouse.

She moves to intercept with her tight red fingers to grasp the buttons of her blouse, she reveals a deep V of white flesh.

She does not wear a bra and releases a swollen white breast, it is covered with purple bruises and blue veins, a red mark spatter.

Like a spoilt fruit against the crushed pink of her blouse it hangs heavy.

The child moves its head into the mass and opens his disjointed mouth, latching to the nipple.

He nuzzles and dips, snuffling quietly. She runs her hands through his hair, holding the child close.

Her face remains unmoving, her watery eyes fixate on some distant thing.

After a few minutes the child pulls away, his lips covered in a sour film, they are wet and red.

Her breast is left exposed to the park, a ring of red marks around her nipple, a ‘cut here’ mark of teeth, and a trickle of pink runs down her front.

And it happened everyday.

I’ve since moved now and I wonder if it still happens, the boy must be eight at least.

I wonder if she still sits in the December park, damp and mottled, breastfeeding the boy child?

I wonder if he still suckles from that sow of a woman?

I wonder whether if I cut him open he would have pale and pink flesh like milk fed veal?

I tell my pregnant wife about the story, she says she won’t breastfeed because her breasts will sag.

I agree silently.

india gaer 43

obaachan dancing with my aqua zumba class

kaylina kodlick

44

the yard: viscera behind buzzing teeth A footstep on the tangerine coloured shell of a ladybug jettisons an explosion, heart and viscera rosier than blood.

When the black spots of a quiet hell cloud eyes swimming in the deep end, ants scatter across weak forearms.

Or when you, daydreaming, feel something in your mouth, not coffee but a drowned hornet, say hello to a hornet’s baby corpse curled up and spat out onto a patch of shadowed grass, a shotgun blast, oiled and tarred crabgrass, for crab-apples in the yard.

And now everything leaves the velvet vibration of drowning insects behind your teeth, so you call home.

Then your mother might say: You should drink less love, you should eat better son, well then you have a problem— Stop or else you’ll lose her.

So you stop; so you lose her.

Now the hornets are still there, drowned stillborn.

45

donald mccarthy

hill house How come it hurts this much?

Layin’ here low, Hoping you would come around.

How come it hurts this much?

Prayin’ they’ll fall, I’m a-waitin’ on the ground.

And wouldn’t it be nice, The sugar and the spice, If you would only pace this town?

If you would only come around.

Our house is sitting on a hill.

It’s a long way up, And a short way (----), Now, you could only break my crown.

No, you could never take What’s never been found.

And you could never hold me (-----), Up go the flames Sproutin’ flowers on the ground, And you could never hold me back, I’m a-hidin’ in the grass Just waitin’ to attack (-----) You said there was a God above, But rollin’ in the dirt Doesn’t feel like love So I’m about to cut it down.

Let the axes fall Cause I’m not proud.

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And hearts were never made of (-----), Remove this poison from my glass, I’m heading for the forward pass.

And wouldn’t it be nice?

The sugar and the spice If you would only talk me down.

loretta st. laurent 47

yvonne

katherine dick

48

skeleton dog

katherine dick

49

exactly where they needed to be pavement dark with moon scatters as quick feet blue scuffed white leather race along pants swaying pinstriped dark as they pass a park plagued with shadows and downtown bustle is mute as Monday men lay pulped on the streets with hands backwards and feet overturned and hairless women run with jingling jangling purses and silence returns sudden as pleasant turns sullen and only clanking shoes are heard through open air evening of stale beer drinking, habitual loneliness connects those who walk these dry stones heavy as ripe hanging apples red as rashes and the feet stop. And they turn, adeptly, pleasantly, facing gorgeous mango door. eyes peer against the windows pressed like pages in a book in a library their eyes glowing brighter than the moon their skin as grey as corner dust and blue shades sing curling behind them. His hand knocks as the door swings open and inside the lights dimmed red and the smell bleeds like rain from clouds formed from the laundry mat above and to the backroom they hurry and she lies closed-eyed face-down on the table with blue ruby ring tight hugging her swollen finger the silver slightly strained. he smiles as he starts getting closer to her avoiding the floor-blood guarding the table and he is able carefully to take the ring from her finger from her body.

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“she died dancing with such glee and grace that she almost floated� and he leaves as quickly as he sawed her finger and the door slams and the people stare as he walks cautiously and turns, ducks, and disappears into an alley and dogs run past him soaked with puddled rain from last week’s pour and as sun ascends stores begin to open and he, still sweating, walks and squints in morning yellow bright and he gets to where he needed to be and he bends onto one knee and as she turns around a tear falls from green eyes and he reaches into his pocket.

gabriel jamieson 51

tamsui river, 2019

serene mitchell 52

serene mitchell

obasan’s mailbox 53

get thee to a university (a ‘faust’ variation) “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” ―Johann Wolfgang von Goethe MARGARETE, 19, stands in an empty university hallway. She verifies that she’s come to the right place, takes a moment to compose herself, then knocks on the large wooden door.

KARL: (Grunting.) Come in.

She tentatively turns the knob and pauses in the doorway.

The “office” is a collection of books stacked one on top of another, forming towers, and a swivel chair which sits KARL FAUSTUS. MARGARETE: Hi, Mr. Faustus I, um— KARL: (Without looking up from his work.) Doctor Faustus.

MARGARETE: (Taken aback.) Doctor—of course, sorry. I’m in your Shakespeare class.

My name is Margarete Gore.

KARL: (Glancing up at her.) Margarete...

MARGARETE: Yeah. I was just, uh, wondering: for the assignment— KARL: That’s a pet-name, isn’t it? Margarete? Originating from the German. Marguerite, Margaretta…

MARGARETE: Oh, I—I’m just a Margarete, it seems.

KARL: (Fixed on her.) ‘The pearl…’

MARGARETE: Sorry?

KARL: It seems we both have German roots.

MARGARETE: I guess!

KARL: (Rising to usher her in.) Well, come in, Margarete! Please, no need to be shy!

Margarete enters, slowly navigating his messy space.

KARL: (Closing the door behind her.) Sit anywhere.

She picks the stack of books closest to her and sits down.

KARL: So, the midterm assignment…?

MARGARETE: Yes. I was gonna write about Ophelia’s, like, death because I thought Gertrude killed her, but then I read online that it was a suicide so now I’m not sure I

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understood the play at all— KARL: Or an accidental drowning.

MARGARETE: Sorry?

KARL: (Wheeling towards her.) She may have intended to kill herself, or she may have just drowned accidentally.

MARGARETE: Oh. I didn’t even think of… could I—could we maybe go over that scene together? If you have a moment to— KARL: Absolutely!

He begins to dig through his book piles.

MARGARETE: (Looking around the room.) I like your—is that a bird?

KARL: Indeed! Made her in a craft workshop once. We were provided disemboweled birds and rats to stuff ourselves. Truly one of the best afternoons of my mid-to-late-50s.

Taxidermy is a lost art, wouldn’t you say?

MARGARETE: What did you do with the animals’ insides?

KARL: Those were placed on crackers, which we all enjoyed as a post-workshop snack!

MARGARETE: (Stares blankly.)

KARL: I’m kidding, dear. The remains were just discarded.

MARGARETE: You know what? (Getting up to leave.) I think I can figure it out.

Thanks for the help, Professor.

Karl finally finds his copy of Hamlet.

KARL: There we are! I must’ve had this edition since ’64!

He deliberately slips an arm around her waist. Gripping onto her side with one hand, he attempts to guide her back to her seat.

Now, which passage was it you said you’d like to go over?

MARGARETE: (Freeing herself.) That’s al-alright. I’m—I’ll be okay. Thank you, Doctor. See you Monday.

She throws open the office door and takes off running down the hallway. Karl tosses the book onto a pile and closes his office door.

sarah lofti 55

aidan with chair

bryn manns

56

nicky swanson hutchison

lone tree at north beach

57

fragments I awoke to news of an unexpected loss. My aunt had died in her home, her body discovered the previous day. This was surprising. She was relatively young, somewhere in her early 50s.

The funeral was to take place nearby. My mother reminded me that she lived outside the city where I was going to university.

The funeral was depressingly Christian, the sort where you could cut and paste anyone’s name in and be ready to go. ________ was a faithful servant to God, ________ will live forever in Heaven, and so on. Nothing about Aunt Caroline’s own life. There was a larger crowd than I had expected, but I suppose that’s what happens when someone dies young.

There’s shock value, a draw. Afterward there were sandwiches and tea in the basement.

It was a couple of days later, after the internment, that my mother first mentioned the house. Aunt Caroline had died alone, and my mother was her only surviving family. As such, the burden of managing her estate – if it could be called that – fell onto her. Aunt Caroline didn’t seem to have much money; I couldn’t recall what her job was, if she had one. Nonetheless, as we drove back from the graveyard, my mother described what sounded like an impressive house. I gathered that it was one of the houses you sometimes see in small towns, the old ones that look entirely out of place. “I don’t know who would buy it,” she concluded. I stared out the window and thought about schoolwork.

The following week began as normal. I went to my classes, saw some friends, did readings.

Everything as it should be. Despite this, I began to feel a sort of gnawing sensation. It wasn’t grief, I don’t think. After all, what use is grief without knowledge? Still, I was unsettled.

My apartment’s emptiness, which I usually prized, weighed on me. Would I, too, die in an empty home?

On Thursday my mother called. After a few perfunctory remarks, we settled back into the conversation about Aunt Caroline’s house. “We went to see it on our way back… I knew she liked to hold on to things but I hadn’t realized the extent of it… The way the market’s looking it may be months before it sells…” – that sort of thing. She sent a link to the listing after the call finished. It featured a brief description and a couple of pictures of the outside of the house. It was Georgian, with three fireplaces and three bathrooms. You could see the disrepair even in the photos that were, I’m sure, carefully selected by the realtor. There were no photos of the inside of the house. Fixer-upper, the listing said, along with “viewing by appointment.” I put the address into my phone. It was closer than I expected; I could take a train there in just over half an hour.

I did just that on Saturday. I had plans to meet a friend at a café not far from the train station. At the last minute, they cancelled. I was just about to order when I saw their text.

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I looked up from my phone and out the window. It looked beautiful, the sky clear. I got the coffee to go and found myself on a train. It was nearly empty, entirely silent, and fast. The city eroded out the window, swiftly replaced by the no-man’s land between the city and the country. Between each stop fewer and fewer buildings passed by, the view eventually ceded mostly to farmland. My car was now completely empty. The train slowed once more, and a small town emerged out the window. I got off, greeted by the cool early fall air.

I checked my phone again. The house was a short distance from the station. I saw no one as I walked. The autopsy determined that Aunt Caroline had been dead for three days before her body was discovered. As I approached her house, I felt surprised it hadn’t taken longer.

The house asserted itself amidst overgrowth. It was gripped by vines, the lawn seemingly un-mowed for years. In the distance a forest loomed. Still, the building conveyed a sort of old-world prestige. A home built on the edge of a receding empire. It was brick, three stories tall, the third protruding from the roof. The design was elaborate in its details, but the overall impression was spare. Red brick, chipped black wood. I found a key under the mat and let myself in.

The door creaked open. I took off my shoes and proceeded slowly into the hall, looking everywhere.

The inside was overwhelmingly cluttered. Stacks of boxes were everywhere, and loose paper covered almost every surface. The air smelled of mildew, and weighed on everything. I entered a sitting room. There was a CD player to my right, flanked by two towers of albums. I looked through them: mostly classical, a few jazz. I ejected the CD in the player — a collection of Vivaldi concertos “per viola d’amore.” This was written in blue marker on the blank CD. Aunt Caroline must have bootlegged it. I smiled a little, feeling, maybe for the first time, a sense of her as a genuine person. It was then that I became aware of what I was doing. For a moment I was frozen. But I knew there was no going back now. With a perverse sinking feeling I reinserted the disc and sat down on a faded couch. On the table in front of me a sheet of paper caught my eye.

At first glance it was just a list of groceries, but in the bottom left hand corner Caroline had written a short poem.

The flower, Dead by your hand, Becomes you The guilt of intrusion was stronger than ever. Curiosity overpowered it again. I spent the day

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going through the house, and found many more poems. It was only when darkness fell that I realized I how much time had passed. I had gathered the papers with poems in a stack in the front sitting room. In case anyone returned, I moved them underneath the desk in the office. I consulted Google maps again and hurried back to the station, gratified to have found a granola bar in my bag. I was already planning my next visit as I devoured it.

October came and went. The leaves reached the height of their beauty and started to blow away.

I went back to Caroline’s house every weekend, leaving my apartment early and often taking the last train back. I suppose I was lucky that no one else was ever at the house, but at the time I never even considered the possibility. The house, in my mind, existed somewhere that couldn’t be accessed by just anyone. I went through all of Caroline’s papers, scouring her house for any trace of poetry. This was no easy task. The clutter was more than just superficial. Caroline appeared to have hoarded papers and books. Her numerous shelves and cabinets were filled with these yellowing relics: ancient lists and bills, sheet music, notes on local wildlife, along with a library of books in which scraps of papers were used as bookmarks.

On a productive visit I would usually manage to get through a couple of rooms worth of papers, and would end up with a short stack of fragmented poetry. And it was fragmented.

The poems were never longer than a few lines. They read like haikus, but didn’t follow any structure, or at least not one I could understand. The more I gathered, though, the more certain I felt that there was an underlying narrative to at work. By November I had finally gone through all her papers. I knew what I needed to do.

The first weekend of November I took an afternoon train into the town, walking the now familiar route to Caroline’s, this time with my knapsack empty. What I had to do next would require a commitment of more than a weekend at a time. I went up to Caroline’s office and filled the backpack with my collected papers. As I left, I felt the same sense of defilement as when I had first examined Caroline’s things. I knew, however, that with that feeling came promise. I couldn’t look back at the house but I kept walking all the same, maintaining an even pace all the way to the station.

The first thing I did when I got back to the apartment was arrange the fragments on my floor. Initially I grouped those that seemed to be written on similar stationary together, but this led nowhere. I came to understand that the paper and ink were misleading, and began stringing the passages together at random, seeing what stuck, and re-arranging them based on what my sense of the narrative became. I tore out the poems written on larger pieces of paper in order to do so more efficiently. Eventually what took form was this: a chance meeting, a period of longing, eventual consummation, halcyon days, an abrupt departure, heartbreak, and then, gradually, an acceptance of loss. Once I understood this skeleton, I began typing the fragments up. I ran into difficulty with Caroline’s handwriting. It was cryptic, the letters slanting up or else crashing down through the lines. Often, I ended up 60

having to guess what a word was. I would write out a list of possibilities, imitating Caroline’s writing, and choose what I thought fit best. Violet or violent took over an hour. Your violent gaze, I finally typed, bewitched me.

I went to bed late each night, exhausted but sated.

The first dream was short.

It was a summer evening, and there seemed to be a festival going on. There were fireworks and screaming children. It was humid. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, but it felt close to water. I was sitting on a bench and she was standing in front of me. She looked beautiful, in a sort of avian way. “Do you mind,” she asked, “if I sit down? I’m meeting someone.” She spoke familiarly, and maintained a slight smile. I made room and she sat. After a moment she turned to me and said, conspiratorially, “You know, I really shouldn’t be here.”

I awoke, already thinking of what needed re-arranging.

Come away with me For the night, Forever And as the sea Washes the rest away We dance The sky alight With your name November became December. I kept on dreaming about her. I had gained a better understanding of the poetry as a result, but most of the dreams were just as short as the first, and often more mundane. In one, for instance, I watched her park a car, get out, and tell me that she was running late. I woke up after each dream. The rhythms of my sleep were interrupted.

Her perpetual smile began to frustrate me.

I finished the draft at the start of the new year. It ended like this: I shine the knives, Set the table, See your reflection Again Remember how 61

You burned me, I shiver, Still longing Fresh gardenias Bone china And solitude Life continues, Unchanging anew That night I saw her again. She was standing in front of a vanity, removing a string of pearls from her neck. She did so slowly, her movements almost performative, placing the necklace in a jewelry box on the left side of the vanity. She produced a bottle of perfume and sprayed her wrists, inhaling after doing so. After a pause, she reached into the jewelry box again. With one hand she pulled out the string of pearls. She appeared to have decided to put it back on.

As she drew the necklace toward her, however, the pearls began to fall off the string. They clattered onto the floor one by one, echoing sharply around the otherwise silent dreamscape.

In the mirror, however, the necklace remained intact. The reflection placed it around her neck and attached the clasp. The woman who was not a reflection did the same, as if she hadn’t noticed it break, fastening an empty silver chain around her neck. She nodded slightly then shut the box. She exited the room, and the woman in the mirror did the same.

I awoke with a certainty that the poem was still unfinished, and that it needed more than just re-arranging. A few days later I was back on the train.

The town looked different in the snow — the previously bland houses took on almost regal air. Caroline’s was especially majestic, the snow hiding much of what was broken. On the train I found myself daydreaming about a secret room, found behind a trick bookshelf. And within, a perfectly bound book of Caroline’s poetry. A silly thought obviously, but here, in front of the house in the snow, it seemed almost like a real possibility.

As I entered, I began to take my coat off. I realized immediately, however, that the temperature was little different than when I was outside. No one lived here anymore. I zipped the jacket back up and proceeded inside, tracking snow behind me.

I was determined to finish the story. To find the truth of it.

I broke the wall by accident. A consequence of my thoroughness. Fumbling as I moved a buffet to the side, my elbow slipped. In the deadness of the house, the sound was revelatory. The plaster was surprisingly thin, as if the house were built like the subdivision that surrounded it.

I recoiled a little, then peered in the gap.

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There was nothing inside. The wall was hollow, it seemed, aside from some slats. I stuck my arm in. The air felt somehow older than in the rest of the house. Soon, though, an equilibrium was reached. The air in the broken wall felt just like that outside of it. It would never be the same again. I withdrew.

What now?

There was a part of me that wanted to take a sledgehammer to the rest of the building, to see whether the other walls were empty, to finally reveal all that the house was hiding. But I couldn’t. Already it would be work to cover up the damage. Still though, an empty wall — it seemed strange. I suppose it could be a facet of how old the house was; there may not have originally been electricity, or heating outside of the fireplaces. At any rate the gap needed to be hidden.

The buffet was beside a large bookshelf. I emptied the bookshelf systematically, retaining the order of the shelves in stacks. I had done the same thing on a previous visit, when I flipped through each page for scraps of paper. When the shelf was empty, I pushed it into the buffet’s place, replaced the books, and put the buffet where the shelf had been. It looked wrong to me, but I figured the real estate agent wouldn’t recognize the difference. I probably knew the house better than anyone alive. Still, there was more to uncover. I walked around the living room, trailing my hand along the walls. My fingertips passed over the faded floral wallpaper. I went into other rooms and did the same, concentrating as hard as I could. I began to hit the walls in intervals, to get a better sense of their contents. Did I sincerely believe that there was something connected with the poetry, or with her, in the walls? Looking back the idea seems ludicrous. Yet in the moment it felt entirely rational. I had looked everywhere else.

I continued walking like this for a while. At times my hand would pass over a framed photograph, or an old painting. Caroline seemed to have liked landscapes. Pastoral ones especially; there was nothing stormy or set at night. I made my way up into the third floor, and sensing nothing, retreated back to the stairwell on the second floor. The centre of the house, more or less. Whereas the first and third floor included relatively large and open rooms, the second floor was a warren. Doubtless it was built to house a large family. In this way, the second floor felt denser than the other parts of the house. If there was something to be found, it would be here.

Like the living room – and a number of other rooms, for that matter – the second-floor hall featured floral wallpaper. The art similarly exemplified what I took to be Caroline’s taste. Five pieces, bright landscapes all, with a large painting in the centre of the hall and two smaller pictures on each side. The central painting depicted an alpine scene; a mountain range rising beyond placid foothills. As I looked closer I realized that the brush strokes were synthetic. It was a print. I removed it from its hook, leaning it beneath the two pictures to my right.

I placed my hands on the wall. I hit it once, softly. It felt just as hollow as the wall in the living room. I closed my eyes. I concentrated as hard as I could.

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If I were to strike here, I could cover the gap with the painting. If there were any secrets left…

I imagined a final fragment of poetry, longer than the rest, sitting inside the wall. I imagined punching through the paper flowers. It could be right in front of me.

The print fell to the floor with a crash. I started, as if waking abruptly. As I did, I pushed the wall.

A crack formed, running straight through the stem of a lily. I stepped back, shaken. The print lay face down, mass-produced canvas staring blankly up at me. I was overcome, frozen in place.

I stayed standing there, looking at the wall. The hall had no windows. I really examined the wallpaper. It wasn’t much of a substitute, but that probably wasn’t the point.

I eventually returned the print to the wall. I made sure it was level, then left the house.

For a week I didn’t dream.

The next Saturday, my mom told me there had been an offer on the house. “It was a bit of a lowball but they said they’d take care of the mess and everything. Sounds like they’re thinking of doing some interesting renovations too. The husband’s a contractor – they have a couple of kids.”

I told her that was great news.

That night I dreamed about her for a final time. We were in the room where I had seen her last. She was sitting on a small backless chair.

“I can’t find my pearls,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“I think they fell apart.”

She laughed at that.

“Could you check the jewelry box for me? I always forget the most obvious places.”

I opened it.

Inside there was a scrap of lined paper. I prayed I wouldn’t wake up.

“Go on, read it.”

I dreamt of snow again Instead of you.

I never earned the reveries; I flipped the page over. There was nothing else. I looked up at her. “It’s hard,” she said, speaking slowly, “to write honestly.”

Everything fell away and went white.

gavin harrison 64

klizzie

aaron kingon

65