Once, shrink-wrapped and shiny,
I knew only possibilities:
the uncapped pen waiting
to meet me, the anticipation of potent
ideas tattooed into my skin.
But then I was wrenched
from my own corseted
longing into the world’s
classroom, passed from sweaty
hand to sweaty hand, and still, even
unused, untapped, I became
wrinkled, nothing
more than forgotten
potential in a rucksack.
Now, discarded, I wait on this littered ground,
surrounded by misgivings and desires, still waiting
in hope that someone will pick me
up, smooth my tired creases, hold me
lovingly, and begin
♦
Gail Anderson-Dargatz, whose fictional style has been coined “Pacific Northwest Gothic” by the Boston Globe, has been published worldwide in English and in many other languages. A Recipe for Bees and The Cure for Death by Lightning were international bestsellers and were both finalists for the Giller Prize. The Cure for Death by Lightning won the UK’s Betty Trask Prize among other awards. Both Turtle Valley and A Rhinestone Button were national bestsellers in Canada and her first book, The Miss Hereford Stories, was short-listed for the Leacock Award for humour. Her new novel The Spawning Grounds will be published by Knopf Canada in September 2016.
Gail also writes novellas for adult literacy learners through Orca’s Rapid Reads program, and mentors writers around the world through her private on-line forums. She lives in the Thompson-Shuswap region of British Columbia.
For more on working with Gail, please visit her website: http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/cms/
♦♦♦
Up Next:
“The robbery and kidnapping had been timed for a snowy April…”
The Litter I See Project 