Speech by Solveig Mardon

She digs her heel in the dirt, her boot sends swirls of thick red dust vacuuming up tiny corridors between sweaty torsos. The whole population of this cowless cowtown gathered at the feet of the politician to hear it all come together or just as damn likely fall apart, like the groaning metal of weekend rattle-trucks built by little brothers and ripped around the edges of town. Neck muscles all around her flex and crumple, everybody squinting at the stage. Handkerchiefs whip over shoulders, slap dust out of brows. She feels him reach down, pinch his fingers around the loose skin of her kneecap, Goddamn, his arms are long. In the smack of the midday heat, rickety fan shaking its noisy head no, he had snuck around her body with that mouth of his, her elbows, knees, backs of her hands, taking skin between teeth and tugging like a gentle dog. The wet-pitted city man onstage is waving his arms around and she can tell the top of his baldy skull is changing color, it’s frying. He finishes his speech. Dusty hands smack together around her, and what do you know, nothing’s changed. She still has sweat in her hair and the hands of an edge-town, hock-spit boy sliding up her leg.

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Slow Thaw by Solveig Mardon

My car windshield was cracked. Rain slipped in and tapped time on the dashboard while you drove. Stereo cymbals crashed and made kilometres into atmospheres, made our autumn road-trip grand and unruly. We stopped at beach, one famous on this coast. Determined plinking notes on a piano made of sugar. The flat grey sand, bookended by mammoth cliffs that ached towards the Pacific, was ours. Your boots were soaked anyway so you waded in up to your waist, hands white with cold, flapping like seagulls for me to follow. The wind spun flecks of salty sting. We checked into a motel, a scratched key with a disco-ball keychain. You loved this kind of chintz. You slid it onto a chain and bowed your head, slipping it over my neck, a bestowal. The smell of our damp socks on the motel heater reminded you of skiing, of salty-sweet hot chocolate from a machine. It reminded me of a slow thaw, from the outside slipping in, like rain.

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