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by Rebecca Hister

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Billy fell off the balcony and now
we’re all afraid of edges

and Montreal is quiet.

I talk to myself everywhere—
like my mother, reciting lines she’ll never put
to the page while washing dishes—

I’m all water on the non-stick pan these days.
The test before the good stuff,
never the good stuff.

And Montreal is still
quiet.

This lack will stain the bathtub pink,
it will cancel all subscriptions started out
as free trials, now forgotten—

forgotten as mum falls asleep on the couch.
Trying to be kind—I let her stay there, TV on
foul and hollow. 

Because change cannot be still, it can only be quiet.

But I am so still some of the time, like my mother—
happiest on the couch.

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