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From the archives

Carbon Copy

In equal balance justly weighed

Dangerous Grounds

Coming soon to a democracy near you

Tax and the Canadian Psyche

Elsbeth Heaman in conversation with Shirley Tillotson

The Condolence Call

 

I cradle the phone gently.

You are so far away.

 

Your grief surrounds you now

like a moat full of dark water.

 

I cannot reach

far enough to comfort you.

 

My words flit around, useless

as flies.

What, after all, can be said?

 

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, you say.

 

I imagine I would have howled.

I imagine I would have rolled on the floor.

But in the end, I cannot begin to imagine.

 

I’ll be okay, you say,

 

but your voice is so remote,

as if you’ve left us all

behind,

for a bleaker planet

 

where the air is charred,

and you cannot find the path

that leads

back home.

 

Marsha Barber is the author of two poetry books: What Is the Sound of Someone Unravelling (Borealis Press, 2011) and All the Lovely Broken People (Borealis Press, 2015). She has won several first-place awards from The Ontario Poetry Society and been shortlisted for the international Bridport Prize for poetry and longlisted for the national ReLit Award. Marsha’s work has been published in a wide range of periodicals including The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, The Walrus and The Prairie Journal.

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