National Poetry Month : Stuart Ross,

TINY CREATURES

after “Insects” by Sawako Nakayasu

Bugs are little things that fly in your mouth

when you shout or are agog. They create

little bugs through bug sex so fast

it would blind you.

You can trim the edges off this planet

like a slice of bread. Eat those

bumps of puss. Can you taste each

white blood cell, the cell’s garbage

and diseased tissue?

At night, the city places its ball gown

on a rotisserie.

I fasten my flesh with clothespins to a rope.

I am made of shivering snakes.

I will not tell you what it is

that obscures my eyes and nose.

The absence of light is like birthday

candles for a woman whose skin, although

damaged, is intact. Her happy face,

which she shoplifted, is on the

rotisserie too.

Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and publisher. He is the winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian literature. Stuart’s 20 books of fiction, poetry, and essays include Motel of the Opposable Thumbs (Anvil Press, 2019), A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry; Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), Pockets (ECW Press, 2017), Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew (winner of the Mona Elaine Adilman Prize for Jewish Fiction; ECW Press, 2011), and Buying Cigarettes for the Dog (winner of the ReLit Prize for Short Fiction; Freehand Books, 2009). Stuart was the 2010 Writer in Residence at Queen’s University. Through his imprints at Mansfield Press (2007–2017) and Anvil Press (2018–present), he has mentored many first-time authors and worked with dozens of mid-career and senior authors. His poetry has been translated into French, Nynorsk, Slovene, Russian, Spanish, and Estonian. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario.