Poetry

Deanna Radford

Safety in numbers

This place is out of reach. This case is minus two dollars and cents.
Windchill neg forty: raw blast force through bus hut for bodies. No
ticket. No wicket. No keypad. No quick mart. But car park. But rapid
transit mound. Call this is. Case this is. Place. It is out of bounds. Bound to
numbers. To units. Words twice. Air time stopped. Heel toe. Snow to
bones. Packed on routes. Paths. I’m negative forty or sixteen bucks. Not
numb, not I, No thing. But closer, come. Mini van. Taxi cab. In
back seat. The driver’s shield. Driver’s side. From there his voice. His voice and,

up front, dear. It’s safe here. Near me, dear.

Deanna Radford is a writer, poet, and poet performer pursuing an MA in creative writing at Concordia University in Montréal. The curator of the Atwater Poetry Project also performs her work in Cloud Unit with Jeremy Young & Philip Vandal. Her poem, “When my lover is across the ocean,” was shortlisted recently for The Capilano Review's 8th Annual Robin Blaser Poetry Contest, judged by Fred Wah. Author photo by Peter Burton