a poem by Stephanie Bolster;

Here's a new poem by Stephanie Bolster, formerly of Vancouver (Burnaby, actually) and Ottawa, currently living in a Montreal suburb (Pointe-Claire), a little piece hidden inside the new Montreal issue of The New Quarterly. This has to be one of the finest pieces I've seen from Bolster, the author of three trade poetry collections and a couple of chapbooks, including two from above/ground press, Three Bloody Words (1996) and Biodome (2006). The last four lines are killer, I think, but it's the final two that really cut, and deep. When does that next collection happen? And will this poem be included?

Night Zoo

Dogs ravaged the yard where yesterday
rabbits and toads. The dead
fed to the cages and the dark.
The mouth of the mouth.

Plants dangled from pegs
beside padlocks. Reaching,
though they weren’t.

A dark stain on concrete.
A little water.

Let’s go, I said,
meaning stay