by Chanel Klein
Why can’t I wear my shoes at home like the Americans do on TV? Standing room only: Breaking in old skin for fresh blisters. Timbits and swine flu: Lunchtime in liminal spaces NO LOITERING — golden rules no shirt, no shoes, no service in the City Center food court. Miasma of fried chicken, hot breath and wet socks. Playing poker with my teeth in these liminal spaces. Dress the blisters in surgical tape Kiss it twice for good luck. Catch a flu on your commute Home is where your shoes are off. Climb a corporate mountain in these perfect kitten heels, Eating rubies I you go, with a string of skulls ‘pon neck. These perfect little kitten heels slice silence down the corridor down the lonely pedway above the methadone clinic. Standing room only. Liminal space — it smells like the grease of working men and their half-ton quarter-working trucks. Cigarette butts and old piss. Construction zones and empty storefronts grow stronger day-by-day Downtown: a 7-11 exclusion zone, All brainfreeze. No Slurpees. Heat wave in ICE District Whip past the tent city in an air conditioned Uber, to the sticky floors of Chinatown karaoke bars, Nursing canker sores with whiskey burns, Slipping on bar tabs and bottle caps. From dollars to dime bags, a string of floss floats on the wind excavating meth-mouthed gaps outside National Bank. Much ado about nothing, only a slick slap of heels on this lemon-fresh linoleum. Barefoot slippin’ on these tiles of sugar glass.
Standing at 5’10” (or 6’1″ in heels) is the “Alberta Amazon” Chanel Klein, an Edmonton-based public speaker and comedian with a mean right-hook and a passion for poetry. At age 11, she published her first work of poetry and her second poem was published at age 30 in Volume 2 of the Capital City Press Anthology. You can find her nervously waiting for her turn at open mics around Edmonton. Chanel is currently unearthing her collection of poetry for a future anthology.
Capital City Press Anthology 