excerpt

The door to Millie’s hospital room opened. Tyne came to with a start
and realized she had been dozing. The book she had been reading
clattered to the floor as she got unsteadily to her feet. Two doctors,
still in surgical scrubs, came into the room which had grown dim in
the fading light from the window. But she could see that Dr. Dunston
led the way, his face grim. Tyne’s heart thudded against her chest wall
as she stood rigid, waiting for him to speak. But when he stood aside
and motioned his companion forward, she thought her heart would
totally stop.
“Tyne … uh … Mrs. Cresswell, this is Dr. Osborne, the surgeon
from Medicine Hat.”
He stepped forward with his hand out. “I believe we’ve met,” he
said quietly, his eyes riveted on her face, “a long time ago. We both
worked at the Holy Cross. I’m Peter Osborne.”
“Of course,” Tyne said as she shook his hand. “You were Cam
Tournquist’s friend.”
“That’s right, we were both surgical interns.” He took a deep
breath. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re not feeling up to small talk right now.
You’re anxious about your aunt.”
“Yes,” Tyne whispered, “how is … is she all right?”
“Please sit down, Mrs. Cresswell, and rest assured that she came
through the surgery. She’s just waking up in the OR.”
Tyne’s sigh of relief stopped short when she realized both doctors
looked too serious to be announcing good news

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excerpt

“Then, go where your heart takes you and don’t worry about a thing, my
darling. It is your path; take it. I’ll be very happy and proud of you.”
Cathy stands up with her last words and hugs Emily.
“Oh, Cathy, I still wonder sometimes whether I’m doing the right thing.”
“Of course you are, darling! What are you supposed to do, sit back and be a
widow? That’s not your style; then again, look at it from this point of view. No
matter what happens down the road, you cannot look at yourself in the mirror
when you are old and say, ‘Pity I didn’t have the guts to take the chance when I
had it.’ You just go where your heart takes you and make the best of it.”
“Yes, and no regrets, okay?” Emily laughs with delight at Cathy’s way of
thinking.
“Never regret anything; just make the best of life and that’s it.”

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Newspapers
Papers sell worthy events
the kiss prince charming gave
princess wild
fold your heroes in pages
wrinkled and part ripped
packaged kilo of red mullets
secretly they rise your heroes
moistened by fish gills and scales
they ascend declaring to the kitchen
and to olive oil smoking in the pan
their innocence of youth
erased dreams and ambitions

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ROMIOSINI

…Come you oh woman who broods on the golden
eggs of thunderbolts –
when an azure day comes you’ll take off the headscarf
and again take up arms
that May’s hailstorm will beat your forehead
that the sun will break a pomegranate in your cotton apron
that alone you will divide seed by seed
among your twelve orphans
that the shore will shine around you like the edge of a sword
and April’s snow
so that the crab will come out from the rocks to sunbathe
and cross its claws…

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Imperishability

Words we never said, words with
the distant echo of the night, futile words
flowing emotions that followed
the body’s shape, passing women,
unfulfilled desires with no reciprocation,
perhaps with no desire to exist.
Many dead shells, petrified,
that slowly cover the tongue,
bronchus, lungs, the underwater
parts of this abandoned ship.

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excerpt

involuntary emotion spreading over the citizens of Kamloops
and their houses complimenting the golden hues left by the westerly
walking sunlight. In such serene moments one could almost
feel that things could slowly fall back in their normal places and
all animosities would subside to become benevolence as the balance
of the universe might again find its place among people and
the darkness brought about by the egos of the few could slowly
dissipate so life could return to normal even in the lives of savages
and beasts.
Mary looked flushed and excited as she met Anton. She
fell in his arms and her eyes searched in his as if to find a response
to her sudden entrance, a positive nod for her loving greeting
and Anton noticed her wish in her beautiful smiling eyes and he
responded in a pleasing way.
“How are you?” she asked him “why you came back?”
“I had a little time before supper and thought of passing by
and perhaps meet you…I’m going to meet a newspaper reporter
later on and I plan to give him some detail out of Dylan’s diary…
the Kamloops Daily News has a piece about the death of Father
Thomas.”
Her mind went to what happened that night and also to
the missing siblings and was ready to remind Anton her earlier
question about their whereabouts when Anton opened up to give
her what he knew.
“I took them to the Indian Reserve on Paul Lake Road,
left them with the chief of the Band.”
“How, where you found them?” her voice showed her anxiety
about the wellbeing of the two siblings and how Anton took
them to the Reserve.
He explained to her that George had brought them to him,
that they had found George at his place and the rest of the story.

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Archer of the Unfeasible
I’m very late
my past is an ancient enigma
one thousand-year-old man
in eternal youth
who has sailed
since eons
shattering the events
into silence
horizon
the myth of time
in the history of lost
opportunities
I’m very late
hung between my meaning
and the flashes of fate
I lie where the season brought me
spender of the unfeasible
confessor of the opposite shore instincts
without what I wanted
a soul to love
where the light narrates
the tree reminiscent
in the chaos

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Tonight, we decided to write a letter for you, mother.
Perhaps we may hear the rain
dripping on your worn-out clogs.
Perhaps we may see your smile
hanging from your chin over our thirst.
They feed us rotten potatoes: don’t worry.
They curse us and hit us: please love us.
Perhaps we may never return—but you still light
the lamp, mother; others will return.
Now you gather the white cloths of exile from
the clothesline.
You stitch the patch of your concern on our socks.
You know, mother, we never used the gloves
you knitted for us
we gave them to a comrade who was taken away
to be court-martialled;
we also gave him a can of food and a piece of
our palm.
He tied the edge of his sack with a string
he tossed the sack on his shoulder
and we saw him climb the hill
with his thin legs scissoring the opposite
sky into pieces.
Each morning, they take a count of us.
Each evening, we count the leftover plates
the leftover grief in our eyes

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Echo
She opened her window
motionless powerful feminine
exhilarating gesture
that shook me
and memory rekindled
paradisiacal kisses
I dreamed of capturing
the echo of a raindrop
falling through fog
into the plaza fountain
greetings, oh life,
here I am too:
splash!

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