Every time she has a new wound: first,
the line was nearly severed like a tendon,
from a mean yank or wild lasso swing.
Then her neck was broken, hanging
together by the multicoloured insides,
keeping the connection intact – just barely.
The next day somebody had wrapped
it up neat with black stick tape, so if you
weren’t looking you could hardly notice,
or say it was a clumsiness, a slip. And
yesterday, a bandage beige like a
bonnet wound round her head, fresh.

blessed me with the universal sign of the

cross with the hush of his mother tongue

Seated safely back from the precipice he

cursed me with the universal sign of the

cross with the hush of his mother tongue

triaged with black electrical tape

reminded me of hockey sticks but

you couldn’t see the scars

-Roo Borson, Personal History

tone deaf evening

spit-scuffed recipient of receiver beating

hangs greasy hair head in hands

stares at basketball shorts and sighs.

Pool chants of children mock measured repetition of painted brick, peeling in humiliation.

Sidewalk won’t admit the proudest edge has been lost under frowsy green grass.

Cabbage butterfly lonely longs for gillyflower hip flask.

And if stream of garden hose aspires to easy flow of clouds in grace-and-favour sky,

repainted bench plank will deride candy-pink 416 scrawl and carved KODY WOS heRe of her neighbours.

Still, cool green metal of bench arms envies lighter complexion of frowsy green grass.

Lustrine asphalt shrugs out of time, back into the curve of the earth.

edges off all y’all like soft leather

dead ahs drag open over your tongue

or stops explode like a jump in between cypress knees

a smooth rivah, this talk

live sounds in your nose like water

Thanks to Torontoist for the inspiration

rent hooks. We
catch looks. We

glow yellow. We
throw hello. We

call collect. We
aren’t gone yet.

after Gwendolyn Brooks

my name is

red ninja alien tagbox lolly

the most fun you can have for twenty bucks

for twenty-five cents

we keep it real around here, ma

strictly indie

Sleep today; flags are
waving. Opens are closing.

Sleep today sun
is leaking park is edging.

Columbus is crying, the natives are
hiding.

Behind walls an all-night poker game is all-
day playing; the girls are long-skirt tambourine
dancing.

Sleep today. Dangers are safe-ing.
Grass is growing.

Moment is waiting, cracks
are sparkling.