Atlas sits on the loading dock filled with tatters, stocky, broken, open topped, the trash within all that’s known of business past. Atlas greets the daily traffic seething past the matinées saying happiness can be dreamed after stage and scene are trashed . . .
Excerpts
Diaspora
I could lose you, but I haven’t so far. I might amuse you, but I daren’t, so far. I could confuse you, but I won’t, so far. Would I refuse you? No, I say. I’ve chosen you, yes, this far from where I was born, faraway from where I woo you, using my hands to soothe you, meeting your hands . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Sides
She was very pretty, the girl. Pity how thin her lips were. That was Tara’s first impression. The door to the basement opened and for a moment, the dull racket of the party yawned alive. The girl was the first to leave and she did so passing not three feet from Tara’s chair without so much as nodding her head. Tara was sitting in the TV room with a book in her lap, waiting for her son’s party guests to leave so that she could confirm they weren’t inebriated. As for the state of this girl, Tara couldn’t tell—she’d passed by too quickly. By the time Tara closed her book and put down her reading glasses, the chime at the front door had made its tinkle. The girl was gone.
Tara forced her bare feet into a pair of runners, flattening out the backs with her heels. The girl was already halfway up the block, hugging herself although the night was sticky and warm. In the yellow light of the streetlamp, Tara noticed some redness on the backs of her legs. A rash?
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
To Toronto
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 . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“I, at least, am yours, have spent a lifetime learning to know you, skittish mongrel, ambitious tart: I stow my heart in Kensington Market . . . ” —Kensington Ave.
“ . . . beneath the Danforth Bridge, hoping time will treat you kindly and my devotion be not worthless . . . ” —Danforth Bridge
“Eastern Avenue will become a berm, an artificial hill to guard new downtown condos from the Don River’s floods every 150 years . . . ” —Don River
Rock Dove
“Miss? ” His hand closes on my forearm. “You got time to help an old man? ”
It takes me a second to see it—his eyes are useless.
“Miss? ”
How can he tell I’m not a missus, a ma’am? Can they smell that deep?
He gives my arm a squeeze. “Hey.”
“Sure,” I say, a little too loudly. “Sure thing.”
The IGA is nothing special. The produce section is better than some—the local Greek widows see to that, shaking bunches of rapini, squeezing garlic bulbs in their fists. The place is Greek-run, but the staff is pretty much a mixed bag. The women behind the deli counter all sound like they come from Russia, or else one of those countries it swallowed and spat back out. They’re mostly older, but there’s one about my age, a skinny brunette whose name tag reads Tatiana. Her face makes me think of the Virgin. Not the dough-faced blonde, the black-haired Madonna with the mouth. When she holds up a slice of ham for my okay, I nod no matter what.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Mo
Mo cannot take Fridays off. As a result he finds himself praying in the eastbound streetcar on his way to work. He assumes the appropriate position—as if holding the Qu’ran in hand—and enters a meditative state of worship, mumbling to himself at points where he usually sings when in the privacy of his own room. Mo makes time for prayer five times throughout the day, which isn’t difficult since he is assistant manager at his uncle’s restaurant and his uncle is a somewhat religious man himself. The plan, explained as such by Uncle Iqbal involves 1) gaining experience with Canadian clientele, which will enable him to speak English more fluently, 2) practising the most recent accounting software and techniques, and 3) giving Mo Canadian work experience. “Very, very necessary,” insisted Uncle. “It was bad enough when I first came; you might as well have come straight from the tea plantation! But these days don’t you dare grow a beard. You know what happened to Yusuf. Uncle paused, looked thoughtful. “We’ll just keep calling you Mo.”