Writer's Excerpts

To Toronto

by Samantha Bernstein

published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 3

I must love you quietly, embarrassed
by your unwieldy desolate sprawl, your cold heart
and shameless lack of fashion sense; deliberately love
what you have cobbled together so carelessly on gridded
streets predictable as a sitcom, the 1980s
a garish tattoo on your nether regions.
     (Had you been born beautiful, a sultry New Orleans,
gamine Paris or majestic Damascus; were you known
for romance or elegance, or like Montreal were praised
for joie de vivre...

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 3