Hello friends and others! Thanks for being back here.

Excited to report that two (2!) of my poems appear in the latest issue of Yolk, a beautiful literary magazine based here in Montreal. Check it out:

This week’s poem is inspired, in part, by a video my father sent me last week. He’s currently digitizing the infinite hours of camcorder footage he recorded of me as a baby and child. One clip features a three-year-old me asking for help to spell the word “narwhal.” Anyway, it was cute.

It’s also inspired by the fact that I keep injuring myself with my own teeth. Also, sorry, there’s an epithet stolen from Homer, I’m not sure why, it’s probably a tacky choice.

Here’s a photo of me and my former pet snake, Tiger, who also had sharp teeth:

Narwhal

I keep getting canker soresfrom biting the inside of my lower lip

My fangs are sharp asfangs, but those of a moredangerous breed

I could hunt with themor inject venomor have a necklace made

I have a box somewherefilled with decorative fangs:a shark’s, a big cat’s

And I swear mine are sharp as those,sharp as my old pet snake’swho bit me once

I imagine myselfon all foursbounding through the savannah

I imagine myselfin a spooky castleenamel painted with human blood

But maybe everybody’s fangsare sharp as mineI’d like to knowbut when I ask him to open widefor scientific purposesso I can feel his fang with my tonguelaughter puts an end to the experiment

And maybe individualityis illusory

Or maybeone fang grows and growsa mighty tusk, a poacher’s prizeand I find myself in the wine-dark sea

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