Volume 32 No.4
If

Editor: Kent Bruyneel

Volume 32 Number 4, If

Jeanette Lynes, Andrew Leith Macrae, Lorna Crozier, Elizabeth Brewster, Kathleen Winter, John Barton, Stephanie Bolster, gillian harding-russell, Veronica Gaylie,Ian Donald Keeling, Matthew Rader, Ken Howe, Daniel Scott Tysdal,Jason Pearce, J.J. Steinfeld, David Zieroth, Bert Almon, Amelia DeFalco, June Mitchell, Anne-Marie Turza

Excerpts

If I Lived In Alberta
by Jeanette Lynes

I’d keep a magpie. Show it largesse, let it
hop along my quilt, peck ticks from the nape of my neck.
I’d sew it small bird bandannas, toss crumbs for it to fetch. It would
appreciate me in the way only dark
birds can. I’d admire its hues—
writer’s-block white, graduation-robe black,
stunning teal sateen of a nineteen-forties’ dinner dress.
Over time, it might even
acquire speech.We’d discuss the fragility of the power grid.
We’d stockpile
sunflower seeds, candles. (I understood quickly enough its fetish
for the small, solitary flame.) We’d be happy.This would be
no dog and pony show, you understand.The magpie will want all
the things I want. Call it reciprocity—
when it wriggles its funky knife-blade tail
I’ll follow it anywhere. In the park, we’ll rent a paddle boat,
Pie at the helm
singing lake shanties. In spring,
when the mountains moult and their white
sides slide away, my magpie, now convinced beyond all doubt
I’m too fine for this world, will waddle to a butte’s edge
to teach me to fly.
“You can talk the talk,” it will squawk—“can you wing the walk?”