ENROUTE TV   ENROUTE FM   MEDIA KIT   AIR CANADA   LINKS   WRITERS'   GUIDELINES	CBC LITERARY AWARDS For over 20 years, CBC Radio has celebrated the best of Canadian writing talent. For a third year enRoute is proud to sponsor the CBC Literary Awards / Prix littéraires Radio-Canada by publishing the winning texts in English and French. The views expressed by the writers do not represent the views of enRoute, Spafax or Air Canada. Certain readers may be offended by the contents. First Prize Poetry MUYBRIDGE’S HORSE Text: ROB WINGER 1   |   2   |   3   |   JUL '04 the split second in walking when both of your feet are airborne the distance between a target and the knowledge of a gunshot water in your throat the space of decline when a masseuse’s finger slips from a knotted muscle the time between balance and impact with the earth my fingers submerged in water, in a dive the moment, in a train lavatory, when a sideways sway has thrown a spray of urine away from the bowl’s mouth any sporting ball suspended in the air the heat of mouths before lips contact the time between an engine and the sound of it the stretching of a knuckle before it cracks a drill changing its tonality as it contacts a sheet of maple whole snowflakes as they meet your tongue a minute hand jumping to its next hour before the clock can chime the stretched pressure of a guitar string before sound the darkness that happens before any object collides with your face the second of ease when the piano you are pushing has built up enough force to glide any form of jumping waves a bird in flight fixing the river his grandfather filled his pigeon’s silver chest with folded messages relied on wind, releasing wings so his dock hands down river mistook every shadow for a bird his virtuous grandmother outlives this husband with nine children teaches, stews, scrubs, orders men to fill Atlantic ships with old world minerals to float across the water each transaction stiffening her towards a certain photograph where her face droops awkwardly, unsmiling lips unwanted bolts in the steel casting of clothing she swallows them making the mouth a line she teaches Edward only thieves and rascals are afraid forces him to make mince pies for neighbours at Christmas says hold up your head and speak out1 in the picture, she is about to rise impatient with each moment when the camera operator prepared plates, framed angles this bulge in the stiff fabric that is her impatient knee, ready she dies in 1870, four years before her daughter does Susannah, gentler sees two of her four sons enter the earth, collapses inward washes memories of her men in acids that slowly fog their outlines she grows old in Kingston-upon-Thames with her youngest boy who fills their house with clocks daily opening their bellies to gears, switches, ticks attempting, as a minor hobby to have them all strike at exactly the same moment2 here, she grows wary of burglars leaves dozens of men’s hats at the front door a silver teapot on the front stairwell, hoping any criminal would see the hats, assume a high male population, take the teapot and run from her conspiracy of watches when she dies, on the hour, in 1874, the house explodes in bells by then, Eadweard is growing famous in California for shooting scenes and people: Harry Larkyns, Leland Stanford Flora Shallcross Stone Floredo Helios Muybridge Occident Seward’s Folly, Farallon Island, Guatemala, Nanaimo, Alcatraz San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, London, New York City Yosemite Valley and environs Cathedral Rock, Mammoth Trees, Woodward’s Gardens, Mount Watkins in mist all these rivers, stopped in the camera’s liquid frames Flora (Larkyns) as Eadweard slows, considering I enter another chaos: Harry Larkyns and every movement he makes is unpredictable I first see him at the Grand Opera House on Mission Street, sleeping in one of the gilded balcony boxes the applause, waking him, is a cue and he stands, immaculate, calculated having noted the celebrity of the dramatis personae he leads the ovation, looking all around for followers the red of his cheeks, then, the same colour as the stage curtains careful folds of his tie matching the softness of his thighs beneath the dark trousers his hands, collapsing on themselves, perform everything that Eadweard is unwilling to consider (Muybridge mixing acids in the California mountains) weeks later, in the hotel suite on Montgomery Street, I ask Harry for instructions, for dinner he laughs and swallows a triple shot of liquor slaps me on the backside and tilts his mouth open, waiting for me there the opposite of clocks Harry is the most beautiful man I’ve known, soft hair, soft speeches he circles public rooms, stitching them with stories gives speeches over putrid pot roasts, praising the perfection of chefs compliments the ugliest children, in front, of course, of well-to-do parents makes lies so real that even he believes them but, it’s not the actor in him I love, the fraud, the well-suited histories fictions of India-France-England romance, gallantry all of this I accept without endearment what I love in him is his constant self-creation the movement from empty space to full narratives not history, but historical ink flooding across paper in bedrooms, even, clothes peeled from our backs how we move depends on his storymaking arrow of the story less important than its details                                                                continued... 1   |   2   |   3   |   JUL '04
	© 2004 enRoute is published monthly by Spafax Canada Inc. All rights reserved. FRANÇAIS