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From the archives

Object Lessons

Lisa Alward’s debut collection

The Other Side of “Irish Eyes”

Brian Mulroney abroad and at home

But Is It Trash?

Evaluating art in the age of conspicuous consumption

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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