Page 78 - Demo

A VERY SHORT POEM
THE SELF APPOINTED
Best goddamn panzanella salad that
I still have ever eaten, every night.
I’d have to wait until midnight on Thursday’s when my cheque deposited To pay my tab.
Drinking fail pails at the Next Act
and sneaking puppies onto the patio To try and impress all the servers who I would end up becoming friends with.
Telling stories about how my grand- mother drank at the Strat back
When it was ladies and escorts only. We danced at Blues on Whyte beside People we thought were old but we would end up looking just like. Wings At Walkabout and then vegan wings at the Buck. l watched tattoo roulette Play out while you told me about how much you missed back when Whyte Was still cool.
I don’t know if it ever was.
Now I walk between the breweries that all seem the same to me and see Old friends on patios playing with their toddlers and talking corporate gigs. Another burger spot and another
pizza joint. Another beloved bar turned Weed store. The cupcake shops all closed down. I order some eggs and bacon At Red Goose and fist bump Happy Day before hitting up HazyD Bakery for My weekly loaf of bread and worry that these spots aren’t long for this world.
I buy the fixings for charcuterie from the Italian Centre. We used to just call That cheese and crackers but now there’s a fancy word for Sad Boy Dinner. I still go to the Next Act. But I’m a Red Star or Clementine cocktail guy on a Friday
And I guess that’s growing up. ED.
→ Conor Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer living
in Edmonton. He is the author of the poetry collections An Explosion of Feathers and Old Gods, which was shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s award. His novel, Avenue of Champions, was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize and won the 2022 ReLIT award. He has a new novel, Prairie Edge, coming out in Spring 2024.
POET LAUREATE OF
NEXT ACT
BY CONOR KERR
Whyte Ave looks a lot different than it did fifteen years ago when
We drank bottles of cheap red wine behind Wunderbar and Filthy’s Power Hour kept a guy going with the last twenty dollars in his pocket.
I think about eating cheap po’boys at DaDeO’s, pitchers of chili lager,
on the Monday deal with my friends on their nights off.
Followed by pints of warm Grasshopper at the Dog, bartop lemon Floating down like all those people who didn’t make it through and
All the relationships that faded away to Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Suburbs and hometowns.
Making out beside the dartboards at the Empress while a Domino’s
Delivery driver kept yelling your name, trying to bring you the UofA40 Pizzas that you ordered. While darts whizzed by with five dollar bills Tacked to the board and what could have been any of the old bands Serenaded our love that would
last until a midday Farrow Grick Middle Departure.
I thought I was classy bringing a twenty dollar bill to the Sugarbowl, Ordering two bottles of La Fin Du Monde and leaving enough for a tip. Heading to whatever university party I was bound to make an ass of Myself at. I thought I was classy switching over to Three Boars and Eating Tapas for the first time.
My friend and I split wings and the
78 EDify. MARCH•APRIL.24
ILLUSTRATION YU-CHEN BELIVEAU
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