Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

An Editorial Discussion of a Love Poem Tentatively Titled Canine Diamond
by Nick Thran

“I really think you should go with that title, Canine Diamond. I mean, it just brings the entire poem to a focal point right away. And the poem could certainly use some focus, what, with her wearing the sunlight like a lace undergarment, and that gardener hoisting his rake to oblivion.”

“Ok, noted.”

“Well then, this part where you see her at a cross-walk for the first time from inside your Datsun, and the hot coffee spills over and scalds your leg, and the Senators/Leafs game is reduced to static; it just seems a little too Canadianna. This is love. We want it, and her for that matter, to seem more universal.”

“She does have that way.”

“And c’mon: her skin like a windswept field of dew? Number one: it’s a cliche, and number two: you told me yourself you haven’t been carnal. You don’t know. She could open her blouse to a chest full of bumps and scars and....”

“...Wait. What if I changed my tongue from a strata cloud into a groundhog mining for gold?”

“Hmmm. I still see complications. But hey, it is your poem.
I do have to say I these fireflies are great. I fucking LOVE these fireflies. They’re everywhere. Do you think you could find a more evocative way to describe them? Something we can really feel.”

“How about, Mardi Gras for my stomach’s winged creatures?”

“A bit over the top, but ya, I like it. Now you’re getting warm. Still, I have to take issue with the section where she liberates the forgotten tunnel people, and the point where she discovers life on Neptune, and especially the lines where she assassinates the Prime Minister with a green size seven shoe.”

“I’m just trying to come to terms with her past. Be realistic, prepared for anything.”

“You said she’s an orderly.”

“An orderly, yes. The most important one in the world.”

“Whatever. None of it changes the fact that these last lines are a big, big, problem. You’ve left a blank space with a thick red circle around it, right here, where I put the question mark: You see me more clearly than I see myself, so clearly I... and then it just breaks off. What is with that?”

“You’re going to hate this, but I wanted to write disappear.”

“No. Scheznip, you are utterly hopeless. You possess none of the hard-edged skepticism necessary to sieve the language down to bone.Scrap the whole love poem. What about dinner, or flowers?”

“I’ve bought her flowers. I have tried meals, but she eats stars.
There is always this one, pale blue, small, wedged between her teeth.”

Believe me, Nick Thran has tried.