September 1 for Sarah

Hass knows the names

of so many trees

and flowers, fruit-

bearing things. His

words make me jealous.

I pretend to be wary 

of his style, but it’s true.

I’m jealous of specificity,

the ability to name

some thing.

Your mother knows

every English flower. We agreed,

it would be a nice skill to have. Walking to the beach,

you tried to name what we passed. 

A neighbour’s tree is

starting to grow small,

red berries in narrow clumps

of a dozen, maybe

sixteen. I wish I knew

what it’s called so

I could name it for you.

And then One Day we Stopped

i. The monkey’s paw was gone. It wasn’t actually a monkey’s paw,

of course, we only called it that. Laura blamed ghosts. Mell got

on her hands and knees and started looking for it. I knew Sam 

had stolen it for an incantation. It was her mother’s wedding ring. 

Her mother had died four years ago. Her father still sold blueberries

by the pound and baked into pies on the side of the highway. 

I had never met him. I screamed when we heard the thud upstairs. 

Mell laughed, then shut up. Sam pretended to be afraid too, but 

started crying. She kneeled at the foot of the stairs with her hands

clasped. “What is it?” Laura said. “How should I know?” Sam said.

There were footsteps, and for a moment it seemed like everything

was perfectly still, right down to the atom. There is nothing more 

unnatural than that. But Sam was pleading. Laura held Mell against 

her leg. Something was coming down the stairs and suddenly it was

Bronwyn, only Bronwyn. “I hope I didn’t scare you,” she said.

I reached for Sam’s shoulder but she was gone. Bronwyn moved 

into her room. We talked about looking for Sam a lot, all the time 

it seemed, about driving and calling and holding seances. And then

we talked about it less. And then one day we stopped. 

ii. Sam appeared at Laura and Mell’s wedding. She looked haggard. 

We were all thrilled though and danced and drank wine and ate

the blueberry pie she brought. We sat down to talk about the years

in that house we shared. Then I said, “Where did you go, Sam?”

and she looked at me like I had just sprouted horns, only a few

years too late. “To find mom, of course. Let me introduce you.”

And she went and got her. Sam’s mother was a corpse. 

We all shook her hand. They were both corpses.

Old Leo Tolstoy’s Picture

For valentine’s day three years ago, I wrote you

erotic Mario Kart: Double Dash!! haikus,

because I knew you used to play it a lot with

your younger brother until that Christmas

at his place you both got drunk on Old Style,

and you made fun of his wife’s Nissan van, 

and he told you to fuck off, and so you stole 

his Bose bluetooth speaker and one of his 

New Balance shoes, just one, and we ran

out into the inch of wet snow, laughing, and

down to the bus stop to go home. Anyway,

I’m thinking of all of this because I found them

in the copy of Anna Karenina I gave you

for your birthday last year when you wanted 

to know more about your heritage, or at least

that’s what you said. And I know you never 

touched it. You didn’t touch it for an entire year

and then left it here so I don’t understand

how the haikus could have ended up there.

They’re shit, anyway. Away from 

the crowds/ of Mushroom City, Koopa/

slowly takes Boo’s cock. And

Only Luigi/ knows the Yoshi Circuit

short-/ cut is for cruising. And so

on. But they got me hard. Maybe only 

because they reminded me of you. With

DK Mountain/ watching, Peach licks Birdo’s clit/

and finally loves. I came all over 

them. Some cum even dripped

onto old Leo Tolstoy’s picture.

Harrison Wade is a writer living in Vancouver, working on a PhD in Cinema Studies. His poems have been published in In the Mood Magazine, Echolocation, pretty cool poetry thing, and elsewhere. Follow him on Instagram (@bgonedullcare).