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
Presence / Absence
If I cross off all the days on the calendar that you weren’t here, whole months would be cast adrift into oceans of black ink. Disconnected, broken apart from the other months, only reachable by telephone. Hello? When will I see you again? My island is too far from shore to remember what you look … Continue reading Presence / Absence
Peckham’s Lake and Old Ugly
A brief memoir of my childhood in the 1970's and early 1980's. All of us with Dad at Peckham's Lake, around 1986 or 1987. Photo by Mom. This must have been taken in early spring, judging from the snow pants and K-Ways. When I think about my early childhood I remember the long, sunny days … Continue reading Peckham’s Lake and Old Ugly
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
New White Keds
Jenny’s little sister Alicia went missing on Tuesday after school in 1984, but no one realized until bedtime. No one realized she was dead until late Wednesday afternoon when Mr. Berg found her body. It was an innocent time. Alicia was eight, with a Jack-o-Lantern grin, tangled golden hair, and loved to play outside for … Continue reading New White Keds
The Rangers Versus the Kidd Creek Zombies
a radio play Listen to the play in the podcast This Black Bear has 28 Minutes, episode 5, published January 13, 2022: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-black-bear-has-28-minutes-episode-5/id1503358294?i=1000547813468
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
Gwen Higgins 