Join us for a live zoom reading from Stuart Ross and Bloodaxe poet Clare Shaw in our new occasional ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home. The reading will take place on Sunday 28th June, 4pm GMT, 11am EDT. Please email inksweatandtears@aol.com today for meeting details.
Tea Time
My nose becomes bored
with the rest of my face.
It tugs in this direction
and that, then manages
to crawl across my left cheek,
down the side of my neck,
onto my shoulder where it
jumps to freedom. Embarrassed
by the empty plain of my face,
I don’t leave my house. I hide
in the backroom and find
a copy of Gogol. I open to
a random page and an ant
crawls out and onto my wrist,
up my arm, my shoulder,
my neck, across my cheek
and onto my face. My arm
and neck tickle as a trail of ants
follow their leader, gathering
just south of my eyes.
There they set up a Utopian
society, a model for the rest
of the planet. They call it
Undulating Mass Nation. My
friends call me Ant-Nose.
I do the talk-show circuit,
and when the public becomes bored
I am relegated to a circus
side show. Thirty years pass.
When I die the ants leave,
disgusted. I lie in my coffin,
unable to smell my own
decomposition. Each day
I expected to hear a scampering
of nostrils on my grave, my
nose come back to join me.
But all I hear is the rattle
of a rusted kettle, telling me
my tea is finally ready.
Stuart Ross is the winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian literature. His 20 books of fiction, poetry, and essays include Motel of the Opposable Thumbs, A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent, and Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, and occasionally blogs at http://bloggamooga.blogspot.com/
Join us for a live zoom reading from Stuart Ross and Bloodaxe poet Clare Shaw in our new occasional ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home. The reading will take place on Sunday 28th June, 4pm GMT, 11am EDT. Please PM IS&T on Twitter for meeting details today.