Treasure Chest

A mother’s world consists of countless interruptions, smashing her thoughts back to reality, back to the spilled cranberry juice, a red puddle of accusation on the carpet. All attention, however fragmented, must be aimed at the child at hand, by the mother. Ideas fall away in a shower of glittering fragments, yet tiny moments of … Continue reading Treasure Chest

Origin Story

I come from a teenage mother a blue-collar father a small mining town where they don’t know MBA-speak. I come from parents who split up on the wrong side of the tracks in a dirty home in the trailer park and I smelled like cigarettes. I come from love and contradiction shame and abandonment the … Continue reading Origin Story

Edward Arrives

an excerpt from the novel-in-progress/story collection Jupiter Creek Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. – Proverbs 4:23 Present day The streetlamps of Jupiter Creek cast cold white globes of light into the night. They were strategically placed, so the artificial light showcased the public walkways and driveways of … Continue reading Edward Arrives

Fragments

In Hanoi, Vietnam, there is a Ceramic Wall so long it holds a Guinness World Record.A tall, muscle-bound, blonde, white man leads my fat tourist’s body through a jog. He explains the features of the Ceramic Wall. Nearly four kilometres in length, it flanks a thoroughfare packedwith shiny red and blue and silver motor scooters. … Continue reading Fragments

Soundtrack

Inspired by the events leading up to January 6, 2021 Have you ever forcedyour own soundtrack overtop of the TV newsheadphones in earsblocking out assaultby political commentarymaking pundits movetheir lips in sync with the beattheir arms waving,their eyes shouting,their mouths, futile.They are tragic figuresof speech,Silenced. Published in Black Bear Review, December 2021.https://blackbearreview.ca/writing/poetry/soundtrack-by-gwen-higgins/

Downriver

Life is the river your father drowned inWhen the tailings dike failed,Or his friend died in the mineshaft,Or some such thingthat your mother won’t say. It is lunchtime in the house that smells of cigarettes and mildewed laundry and damp basement, ashes wafting from the polyolefin couch and green sculpted shag carpet. Gott in Himmel, … Continue reading Downriver