summers with nan

by Tanisha E. Khan

Snapdragons, wild garlic, her loose arms
hugging closed her cardigans, touring
you around her garden. You visited her
for two weeks each summer. How strange

—The Grandmother, by Kayla Czaga

(i)        toronto

your eyelashes catch on jagged edges,
around twists of brass flowers caked in dirt—a lock,
rusted and half-remembered, with grit in the screws. 
one small hand is a pirate’s eyepatch—oy, matey! 
the other rests on warped wood.
you peer through the keyhole into a cement oasis: spider vines 
climb concrete railings, pigeons roost in the vent, resting.
slowly she stirs. and dazed in humid heaviness hang
Snapdragons, wild garlic, her loose arms

(ii)      drumheller

sun statuettes, the hoodoos lean, striated by millennia,
smoothed by many palms snuck past the no trespass signs. she poses, 
hip cocked to sable curves, fragile and diminutive. wandering,
you wonder at brittle bones, impressions post-extinction—metacarpals,
ilium, ischium—unearthed and dusted. they stand on waxed floors
by the gift shop. below, the waterpark’s cool spray springs
forth. car rooves glint in the gloaming as she watches
from the t-rex’s cavernous mouth, past pointed teeth,
hugging closed her cardigans, touring

(iii)    red deer 

the horses wear petaled grins, deadhead lilies, asters, goldenrod, 
meandering through the valley. she rests among lobelias 
and flowering oregano, while a hummingbird’s wings beat out
stories she’s lost. you watch it all through a glass of lemonade,
too tart on the tongue. cool condensation trickles past your fingers,
and your palms cup a watery reflection. she calls you over, pulling
beets, carrots, spring onions, fresh from the ground, her wide
brimmed hat a second sun. and soil-happy hands held, she walks
you around her garden. You visited her

(iv)    flin flon

you say, the sand’s memory is fickle, mauve, one footprint vanishing 
before the next, but the humidity holds tight to last evening: 
rain-washed sediment, burnt wood. through binoculars she inspects 
beer cans and charred fishbones—forgotten treasure 
on the lake’s lone island. off the highway, spray-painted rocks make faces 
indecipherable even to the eagle on its cliff perch. you cut through leech 
tangled reeds, to where the water is a looking glass, broken
by the occasional belly-flop of jackfish. the call of the loon is only heard
for two weeks each summer. How strange

Forest

by Guilherme Bergamini

Tanisha E. Khan is a Canadian writer. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon, and her work has appeared in apart: a year of pandemic poetry and prose. When not writing, she’s on walks, petting all local cats and dogs.

Visual artist and photographic reporter, Guilherme Bergamini is Brazilian and graduated in Journalism. For more than two decades, he has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art offers. The works of the artist dialogue between memory and social political criticism. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 54 countries.