MAGPIES
Last night I had a dream.
We were standing inside the entrance of a grocery
store, pumpkins surrounded us
you kept saying something
but only magpies
came from the dark stretch
of your mouth.
I’ll blame the concussion
ever since that ladder
fell on my head I’ve been dreaming
of a life that could never have existed.
My parents still together
you
still alive and rubbing the arch
of my foot after a hard day at work.
I would have you know I look fine this year.
Age suits me well. I still look young
but maybe a little weathered.
Here is the betrayal: my life isn’t so bad now,
this future where no one I know will recognize your name.
Author’s Bio
Ashley-Elizabeth Best is from Kingston, Ontario. Her work has been published internationally in CV2, Ambit Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada, The Columbia Review, and Glasgow Review of Books, among many others. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and her debut collection of poetry was published with ECW Press.