Diaspora Dialogues

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excerpt

Next Time

by

I can’t help but feel guilty when I see Tito Sisi’s fond smile. I don’t know what’s happened to Tito Sisi’s wife, children or other grandchildren—no one bothers to ask—but Tito Sisi’s living arrangements stand in stark contrast to Papa Lamig’s in Toronto. Papa Lamig is tended by strangers and visited once every two weeks despite living minutes away from his three sons, three daughters and sixteen grandchildren. Meeting Delia makes me want to visit Papa Lamig, give him a hug, hold his hand, read him books and tell him about my day, though even as I think of it I know how silly it will be trying to shower love on a man seemingly so averse to affection.

“I like what you did to the place, Tito,” Dad says again.

Tito Sisi looks around. “I suppose I’ve maintained it well,” he says. “You tell your dad that, Ton. Let him know that I’m taking care of the place, even though he should be the one here. He’s the one that wanted it, after all. I never did.” But his voice lacks all his earlier, angrier conviction. Instead he sounds tired and, for the first time since we’ve started talking, old.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

Contusions

by

i.
Spine twists into pomegranate streets
no words for deformed faces, desecrated
bodies not yet covered in white.
Hope drips from tips of fingers moulding home
in the glitter of rooftop cries to god
in a dua blown into jasmine wind
in a bullet blasting inside a woman’s chest.
Hope drips in battered limbs between
batons, broken bones across
broken earth. Home.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

This Wide Summary of Cities

by

Standing under the confused solution of this sky
I take in the rain. A woman whirls on a hoop.
The smokers under a canopy, coughing. Umbrellas
are useless, in this wind. Everyone is wet, faces
shining, rueful. Graffiti dissolves a question.
All the places we dreamed of living, and here
we are. This wide summary of cities,
itself and everywhere. I accept its rain.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

Aisha Mama

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It was a quiet hot afternoon as Aisha Mama told her story and people, both ghosts and the living, were gathered in their houses after lunch lying down in the cool shade. Hani and Kadijo moved close to their mother as she spoke and even their dead father got up from his distant spot and came and sat closer under the shade of the avocado tree. In the hush that covered the town Aisha Mama’s story poured out from her and spread. It was a sticky story.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

The Building Blocks

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I followed her off the train and out of the station to Eglinton West Avenue—“Little Caribbean” to those of us who knew it well. I loved everything about that neighbourhood, from the haphazard assortment of clothing shops to the soca or reggae that played in every other restaurant. Even the way people gathered on the sidewalks excited me, the way men and women would lean against brick walls and laugh and yell and tell stories with their hands. It was the only thing I liked about going over to Nana’s; her house was on a residential street just off the avenue and the trip there made everything a little bit worthwhile.

When we finally made it to her bungalow, it was around twelve thirty. She opened the door and I lingered in the entryway, dreading the moment I had to actually go inside. I was planning to stand in that entryway forever, or at least for as long as it took for my mother to come and rescue me. But when I made no sign of moving, she shoved me inside.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

The Copyeditors

by

It had been a productive day. Not only had they stroked out a glaring, but previously undetected, redundancy from their lives, but they had also, in the early morning, spray-painted over the second l on the shop sign “Youthfull Flower Designs,” thereby ridding Toronto streets of one more error. Yesterday, from the grubby window of a westbound Dundas streetcar, Ben had spotted the superfluous letter and had jotted down the location. Today Will rattled the can and guided the nozzle into a curative curlicue. That’s how they divided tasks: one detecting, the other correcting. The perfect Copyediting duo, each with his own strength. Ben could find a misspelling in a haystack; Will could spot a comma splice a mile away.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
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