Return to Sender

Was she thinking: grief
is a letter you mail to yourself

once the turnstile’s been turned
at the subway station

x number of times. The delay
is necessary, chosen in advance

for a day like this, when she pushes
the door open into a room

made immaculate, and relatives
made inquisitive, by an infant’s 

early death . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 4. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

Recommended

Jewels

Eva had light brown skin that was as smooth and glossy as polished stone. Carol always wondered how it was that skin could be so smooth—and so soft. Eva’s skin smelled of soap and Nivea. Sometimes Carol put Nivea on her skin too—her hands, her arms . . .

A Cardboard Box

Sometimes, especially after a harsh, long Canadian winter, it seems as though spring will never come, that it has frozen to death somewhere deep in the ground, buried inside an eternal shroud of glittering ice. It’s a mid April morning, and my three children, Bahram, Baba and Behzad, wave to me from the dirty windows of the yellow school bus . . .