Issue 50: Summer 2020

True Value

The sky was never my court date./ If I died once. If I left the body.

 

The sky was never my court date.

If I died once. If I left the body.

Habeas corpus.

This is not my grave.

The value in a dead woman

is that she cannot be killed

again or cross-examined.

The value in being the dead

woman at trial is the Crown

doesn’t represent you

regardless.

The value in being

dead is that it’s impolite

to speak ill

of you.

What is called

wellness,

victim-witness?

A swab taken

of every orifice.

Were there any

identifying marks?

Were you in fact

on the moon

that night,

Miss Howard?

Did you make a choice?

I made a cut—it released something.

I broke the line.

 

About the author

Liz Howard’s debut collection Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, was shortlisted for the 2015 Governor General’s Award for poetry, and was named a Globe and Mail top 100 book. A National Magazine Award finalist, her recent work has appeared in Canadian Art, The Fiddlehead, Poetry, The Walrus, and Best Canadian Poetry. Howard received an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She served as the 2018–19 Distinguished Canadian Writer in Residence at the University of Calgary, and has completed creative writing and Indigenous arts residencies at UBC Kelowna, Douglas College, and Sheridan College. Howard is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe heritage. Born and raised on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario, she currently lives in Toronto.