A Column of The Miramichi Reader
Clara, Antwerp, 1611 As I enter the kitchen through the waning morning dark, I enter a deep silence. When my eyes adjust, I am startled by the variety of beings and feathers heaped on the surface of the narrow table. Here, the intact head of a waterfowl has been dropped like an anchor while …
When Margie is pressed to share a secret at the annual office retreat, she hesitates, hoping lunch will be announced. It’s been a long morning and they’re all hungry. C’mon Margie, they urge. We’ve all shared our secrets so it’s only fair you share yours. How will we bond if we don’t share secrets? Reluctantly, …
I. Once upon a time, no one believed her. Even when Bear stands toe-to-toe with the sheriff, they do not believe her. Even when Bear huffs, or rudely shimmies against the living room wall, marking it with her scent, or crams blueberries into her snout—still, they do not believe her. Worse, Bette left her shoe …
I want to ask the man standing in line in front of me where he’s from, but people don’t do that anymore. This was always a big city with no small talk. The fact that we’re waiting in line at the airless post office makes it worse. We have all agreed to stand in this …
After supper, we took the kids down to the road next to Bryson’s Pond to see the body. Picture ran in yesterday’s paper of the accident. The kind of thing that makes news in our small town: smashed up car with the hood rammed through the interior and door sheared off, its body leaning against the …
They are standing still, quite near to each other, on a small wooden bridge. It arches over a shallow creek, connecting to a path at the edge of a forest. She doesn’t know why he brought her here, and as he speaks in philosophical tongues she clicks her painted black nails on the slender railing. …
We were sitting by a stream that runs through a gulley beside my father’s apartment, when he began picking at his thumb. I let it go on for a bit, distracted and listening for my son playing off in the trees, but soon my father was gnawing at it, making small angry noises. He tore …
The river, where its surface can be seen, is a muddy brown. It is indifferent to what it carries, unburdened equally by flowers, or corpses, or shit. Some girls wade in up to their waists, calling out names when a face is recognized. It’s routine now, just another chore, like grinding millet or weeding the …
As children, we would speak to the giants through the pipe that snaked up the mountain and blossomed into an ear trumpet miles above us. We never really had anything to say, so we resorted to niceties. How’s the weather up there? Seen any good birds recently? The blueberries are lovely this year. I could …
Before your mother’s death, your father sat anywhere in the living room. Afterward, he’d place himself where he could see the urn holding her ashes. One day, he scoops out a tablespoon of ash and mixes it with his tea. Then he sits outside, up to his face in the pink evening as the light …
Upon landing, Johannes Kepler looks back at Earth, a blue-green ball tossed high in lunar sky. He makes the grunt of satisfaction known to his most intimate friends, dips quill and writes: one can only experience such homesick affection when one admires a beloved object from afar. His first steps stagger. Despite the wine steeped …
The client took my coat and led me down a corridor to an ornate living room. On a large, oval table lay a cloth and five candles. Two of the candles were lit. He motioned for me to sit down. “You’ll drink Scotch?” “I’ll drink water, please.” He looked at me like I was asking …