Spring 2025, Volume 46, No. 1

$14.95

Cover image by Pierrette Boily

Introduction
Katherine Bitney

Fiction
Terri Favro
Evena Gottschalk
Fran Kimmel
Anna C. Rumin
Patricia Stott Prince
Nikki Vogel
Marcia Walker

Poetry
Maureen Hynes
Jeanette Lynes
Kate Marshall Flaherty
Lorri Neilsen Glenn
Shauna Paull
Anna Quon
Heather Ramsay
Ingrid Ruthig
Gwynn Scheltema
Diane Tucker

Creative Non-Fiction
Kate Bird
Rose Cullis
Terrie Hamazaki
Shelly Johnson
Denisha Naidoo
Julie Salverson
Carolyn Marie Souaid
Theresa Ann Wallace

Non-Fiction Preview
Rearranged by Water
By Julie Salverson

A woman walks her dog along the white sand beach. She shields her eyes from the sun and glances up through tall pine trees. The wind stirs a branch. A red kite appears. The woman’s eyes follow the string down from the kite. It unravels straight and white through the afternoon winter sky. Cold day for a kite, she thinks.

Somewhere inland, in the city, there is a public announcement. People should take care, but nothing to worry about. A wave, possibly. Stay tuned. The woman doesn’t hear it. Her dog tugs at the leash and she walks on.

When the wave comes, it stretches long inky fingers onto the beach. Surprised, the woman turns her head.

There is a lot of footage of that day still online. From the air the wave seems to crawl in silently, but then you realize your sound is turned down. You turn it up, you hear a dull roar, anxious voices, and you see a man holding his cell phone over the side of a balcony, recording the houses being swallowed whole and rearranged by water. Recording the cars tumbled like children’s toys, bobbing and sinking. Recording large boats with tall masts pushed towards shore, rammed against a bridge, then broken and pulled under, reappearing in smashed bits. …(full piece in issue)

Fiction Preview
Sweet Scent of Baby Powder
by Evena Gottschalk

You told me it was the right thing to do when I couldn’t find a job, on the island. You told me if I really wanted to improve my life, I should board an airplane or ship and move as far away as possible. “We Black people still not getting the respect we deserve. I tried, you tried and tings still bad round here,” you said.

I took your advice, applied to work as a nanny-housekeeper through the West Indian Domestic Scheme. At the airport and before submitting my passport, you held my hand and kissed me on the cheek. Not a single tear dropped from your eyes. You reminded me to love the Lord, then slipped a small Bible in my hand. As I approached the final exit, you said, “Call and write soon and let me know how you gettin’ on, Lorena.”

I turned around to take that final look at you. Unflappable and proud. Your salt-and-pepper hair curled, your dress creaseless, your back straight. I took a mental photo of you, so I could carry that final goodbye with me to Montréal. “I’ll write often,” I said. And I’ll send you money to help with the household.”

That cloudy afternoon, back in 1960 when I stood on the top step of Trans Canada Airlines, I wore a pillbox hat and the suit you had designed and sewn for me, and I waved the white handkerchief you embroidered with daisies and my initials.

When the airplane lifted off the tarmac, fear and excitement gripped me. I clenched the seat arm, gazed through the small oval window as the airplane turned towards the east coast, with its craggy hills and white-capped waves lashing the shore. As the plane rose among the clouds, I realized there was no turning back. And I was on my own. …(full piece in issue)

Poetry Preview
Waiting Room
by Heather Ramsay

I am the poet of hospitals.
Of deep-breath driving through
the night, while he pants
beside me, having, not having
a heart attack. Of bearded men in
electric scooters asking for change
for the bus. Of a mother banging
the shield of plexiglass to demand
the doctors see to her daughter,
now. She has fallen down the stairs.
She is fourth in line. She is thirty-five
years old. Heated blankets. Masks.

The poet of long sleeves too
tight to pull up and the different
sized blood pressure cuffs. Of saline
bags and pee into this. Blood and Kit
Kat wrappers left on the floor.
That lady in scrubs. She is the poet
of sweeping the shattered away.
I am the poet of circling
for parking and drinking bad coffee.
The radiators that sat in the back
of the car. The water with ice. No ice.
The lanolin. Of repeating

Your last name and birthdate
time and time again.
The poet of Cream of Wheat
and Walter sleeping all day, then
buzzing the nurse at 4 am. Of
Cam with his blood clots listening
to episodes of Seinfeld into
the night. Pain and alopecia
in the bed beside him, her five
kids at home. The poet of doctors
who try to find solutions, potions
that will fix things. But they don’t.

I am the poet of the truth.
There is no cure. Nothing
can be done.