This is how
she spends
her Saturday,
flipping
through pages
of sale
flyers
until her fingers
are ink-stained,
smudged
with grey silt,
as if she’d been
shucking oyster
shells, turning
the bone-
handled blade
to split
that hard
lip, expose
a rare pearl.
♦
Lauren Carter is the author of Swarm, described as “a somberly melodic, literary foray” by Booklist and named one of CBC’s Top 40 books that could change Canada, as well as Lichen Bright, a poetry collection. Her prose and poetry have won and been short-listed for several awards, including the CBC Literary Prizes, and anthologized in 15: Best Canadian Stories (edited by John Metcalf). She has recently completed a second manuscript of poetry and is finishing a short-story collection and two novels with the assistance of a major arts grant from the Manitoba Arts Council, at her home in The Pas, Manitoba. Visit her online at www.laurencarter.ca where she blogs weekly about writing and life in the north.
♦♦♦
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