Esther Mazakian: Inside Her Darkest Ice Age

                                                 From under an avalanche of angst-y avoidance they sniffed out

an escape route like it was fresh kill; predators gathering in cool cahoots, they moulded

a smooth globular cake of icy guile

out of instinct, hard

snow, to serve as the first loveball of hot grade 8 infamy; a recess erection

                                for a week straight and architecturally,

a frozen

                                                sherbet of near-

fornication

that caught her breathless one frigid morning ass-

first after Science, protesting disingenuous, gasping with hormonal semi-indecision,

                                her neck a scarf of sweaty mohair, her body a toppled

baby in a snowsuit, nylon arms, legs, hood pointed

                                                                                into a star shooting toward the blue,

                                wintry,

cartoon-cloudy sky,

                                                and her lips pressed to the lips of the maladjusted boy thrown at her

core, core of seedy pubescent entrails, boy from the back

of the class with the scuzzy

hair, plaque-hoary teeth, no wherewithal

to hand                                                                                

anything in, and she kissed him hard, hard with a zealous, crural squeeze that surprised

                                even her, this boy, this boy that her mother

                                                                                                would have taken by the ear like a rat

by its tail

                                and fast chaperoned

out of her daughter’s world, a world that was, until then, a still-frozen sluice of coming

betrayal, that is,

                                                                                                before the cryo-

                                                philic

father’s head caught wind,

                                                                hacked up a squall of encroachment,

                                                                                                                                                 blew.



Esther Mazakian lives in Toronto. In 2006, she published her first book of poetry, All The Lifters (Signature Editions), which was shortlisted for a ReLit Award. She is currently working on a second entitled, The Stain of the Story.

Esther Mazakian has been published in numerous journals, Malahat, Event, Prism, Descant, Fiddlehead and was the winner of the winner of Earle Birney Prize for Poetry 2004 and was an editor's choice in 2002 and 2003 in the ARC Poetry Contest.