Are you a sinner? Cain and Abel pass plates at dinner. Stepping onto the bus with that blue knapsack, Mom’s back, smashed, from the pressure of trying to keep you upright. Dad yelled ‘cause you ran up the phone bill again. On the bus after school, A girl told me that you...
INTERROGATION OF MRS. JOHN GRAVES AS TO THE DEATH OF ANGELA TIMONY OCTOBER 29, 1644 “Mrs. Graves,” Moncton said. “Three nights ago, you turned yourself in to my fellow investigator, Mr. Clarkson, claiming yourself to be a werewolf. Do you deny this?” “I do not.” “You then confessed...
Memorandum To: All Staff From: Dog Subject: Stay To Whom it May Concern: Please see me as an emaciated hound, taken off the streets, abandoned at the shelter, lips peeling back to the shine of my bared teeth. A reminder that I am: Ready to bite a hand that dares to...
Let me tell you about Jim Grossman. Now, when I think of Jim Grossman, I can’t help but picture his artificial white teeth. Maureen always said he must paint them with the same stuff they used on their old fence last spring. I tell you...
It’s silly, really, how I cling, nails piercing palms, to that postcard dream of Switzerland. You said it once, just offhand, that you’d love to wake up there one Christmas to the hush of snow, in a silence too perfect to take for granted. And each year I promise myself: Go. Book...
You sit across from me on the couch, a variety of lamps yellowing the dark room, your fingernails tapping against your knee. The silence is filled with my heartbeat pressing against my neck, my wrists, my fingers. The blood gets caught in my muscles. You...
[audio mp3="https://www.queensquilt.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ocalenie-Salvation.mp3"][/audio] And so we go back: Back to where ancient spruce stand sentinel over the place where you were born. Where all that’s left is a horseshoe and a brick in a muddy field, quietly making their way back to dust. This is my inheritance you say, an arm sweeping...
Whispering songs will sing back a story of the ever-changing, ever-watchful moon, If there is another so vigilant, let us sing it. The light beams down, a spotlight on her crumpling, hunching form. She awakens like this; under moonlight; shivering, crying, and seeping. Her soft inner thighs stain a...
MARTIN, L.—Died publicly on March 9, 2021, in the same way a caterpillar must die to become a moth. MARTIN, L.—Died quietly on July 16, 2020. All of her organs began to dissolve, with only the important ones remaining. For instance, the letter P. She will...
[audio mp3="https://www.queensquilt.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Host.mp3"][/audio] The dread comes first. The signs begin later, though still months in advance. You’ve seen it happen before. You know what to expect, what to fear. The way your sister’s body changed and betrayed her. The way your best friend survived, only to wish...