Diaspora Dialogues

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TOK

mud pigeon

by

There was a time at Dufferin station when the black
lines that ridged that mud pigeon’s wings reminded me of wound
stripes on a war uniform, and because I saw it everyday
stippled with flicked cigarette
burns, I started to feel

for the dirt thing, think of it sometimes
in the dimmed light of long subway rides, its eyes
red as a fresh bullet’s entrance . . . 

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

Toronto locations referenced in this piece

“There was a time at Dufferin station when the black lines that ridged that mud pigeon’s wings reminded me of wound stripes on a war uniform, and because I saw it everyday stippled with flicked cigarette burns, I started to feel for the dirt thing . . . ” Dufferin Subway Station

Words, Dancing on My Skin

by

Her head was slightly tilted and her cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. She placed her ear close to the cool, green rind of a watermelon and knocked. She caught me staring. Her coral lips stretched wide to expose her yellow teeth. The cigarette didn’t fall—it just hung, tugging at her lower lip. She wasn’t thin but she was beautiful, and she had a sash to prove it—MISS SWEDEN 1951. Her large eyelashes flickered for only a moment before her fingers let the watermelon slip and fall onto the sidewalk. I heard the thud but saw only a beauty queen walk toward me as if in slow motion. Her gold-strapped heels cut through the splashing pulp and juice of the watermelon. Some of the glossy seeds stuck to her bare legs.

“I’m Kiki.” She extended her hand and smiled.

I felt the goose bumps rippling up my arms. Without hesitating I reached for her hand.

“Terezinha!” My mother yanked at my wrist. Kiki, immovable and smiling, straightened her back and adjusted her sash so that it crossed her cone-like breasts. I was pulled back into the fish market.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.

Toronto locations referenced in this piece

“We lived in a big house on Palmerston Avenue. It had to be big because my father always had friends or family live with us when they first came from the Azores to Canada. My mother said it was our way of helping out until they could do it on their own . . . ” —Palmerston Ave.

“Augusta Avenue was the main street where most Portuguese people shopped. We always called it ow-goo-shtah—that’s the way our parents pronounced it. Thursday was the day my mother had chosen to do our family groceries . . . ” —Augusta Ave.

“I saw Kiki feeding the pigeons in Bellevue Park, right across from the Portuguese Eaton’s, SASMART. We had been meeting here for a few weeks now, every Thursday . . . ” —Bellevue Park

“She led me through the crooked alleys of Baldwin Street and the narrow lane-ways that ran behind Kensington Avenue and Augusta Avenue. It was a different world, not like the brightly painted fronts . . . ” —Baldwin St.

“She led me through the crooked alleys of Baldwin Street and the narrow lane-ways that ran behind Kensington Avenue and Augusta Avenue. It was a different world, not like the brightly painted fronts . . . ” —Kensington Ave.

“I didn’t want to think too much about it. I ran across the park, toward Wales Avenue and a shortcut to the library. I looked back to see my mother looking at me. I waved and she disappeared . . . ” —Wales Ave.

“I quickly turned up Bellevue Avenue and made my way behind the synagogue. I didn’t know what to expect as I passed behind the dumpster and made my way up the stairs . . . ” —Bellevue Ave.

“I was yanked down the stairs into the sunlight, my eyes adjusting again as I moved around the dumpster and through the lane. We walked at a pounding pace and then slowed down when we came to Dundas and Bathurst . . . ” —Dundas & Bathurst

Birthday Blues

by

I woke up on the morning of my twelfth birthday and immediately wished I hadn’t. It was almost ten and the house had that deathly Sunday stillness. I went to the washroom, peed, wiped the seat clean of the yellow drops and flushed the toilet—all as mum had trained me to do.

I went back to my room and picked up The Dark Knight Returns. I lay down on my bed and began to read. Reading kept my mind off things like how dorky all my birthdays have been. Okay, not all, but at least the ones I can remember. I needed no crystal ball to tell me that today would be no different.

I heard a sudden vroom downstairs—mum must have started on her favourite weekend pastime, vacuuming the whole damn universe. It was only a matter of time before she came upstairs, dragging the machine like a pit bull on a leash. I got up and played Back Street Boys real loud to drown the racket she was making.

Soon enough, without so much as a knock, mum pushed open my bedroom door. Mum believed in surprising people.

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

Safari

by

Sultan Uncle placed several glossy brochures in front of Arif and Meena. “I recommend this one.” He tapped the brochure for the Tree Tops Lodge & Resort. “Top class luxury. It will be the ultimate safari. Of course you can also try the Serena. Can’t go wrong there either. After all the Imam owns that one.”

Arif rubbed his goatee as he reviewed the brochures. The hotels weren’t exactly what he had in mind. “Actually, Cha-cha, I think Shakeel would enjoy a camping safari more.” He turned to his son, who was slumped on a chair behind them, playing with his Game Boy. “What do you say, buddy? ” Arif pointed to a poster behind Sultan Uncle’s desk. The poster showed a group of white campers, hair rustled, unshaven, sitting around a fire and holding out bottles of beer to the camera. A Masai man stood in the background, wearing a warrior’s shield and holding a spear. The sign above the campers read “Discover Kenya in Livingston’s Footsteps.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Shakeel said as he pushed up his glasses. “That would be cool.”

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

Toronto locations referenced in this piece

“Soon after they were married, they opened a dental practice in Fairview Mall at Sheppard Avenue and Don Mills . . . ” —Fairview Mall

“The practice grew quickly so that before the end of their second anniversary, they opened additional office, this one in Parkway Mall, only ten minutes away at Ellesmere Road and Victoria Park . . . ” —Parkway Mall

“Soon after Shakeel’s birth, they had been appointed Regular Mukhi-Sahib and Mukhiana-Ma at the Unionville Jamatkhana . . . ” —Unionville

“She had signed up for Weight Watchers a few months ago after Munir, the husband of a friend, had joked during a group excursion to the water park at Ontario Place that she still hadn’t lost her baby fat . . . ” —Ontario Place

“When Arif and his brother were growing up, their parents owned a medium-sized grocery store located not far from the Dundas West subway station . . . ” —Dundas West

The Iron Curtain

by

“Neil, what you studying in school, boy? Interracial marriages? ” my mom asked.

“International relations,” I said. Suddenly I was slurping down the rest of my coffee in a rush to get out.

She turned to my father. “I send he to ‘U.F.T.’ to study international relations but I feel he studying interracial marriages. I does see we son knocking about with a little girl of the . . . Asian persuasion.” She glowered over her mug at me, and I back at her. “I getting a Chinese girl for my daughter-in-law,” she said. “Allyou think she could cook a roti? ”

She did this to stir my dad and it worked every time.

“She go feed me chow mein and pork till I dead,” Dad said. “Noodles, noodles, noodles! My backside already thin like a noodles. How I could survive on that? ” He waved his bony arms.

“Don’t forget fortune cookies.” My mother sipped the last drop of Milofrom her mug and headed to the family room.

My dad followed her. “Me ain’t want no cookie with fortune inside. I done know my fortune if my son marry a Chinese girl: I go dead from eating noodles.”

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

Return to Sender

by 

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.
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