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<h1>Presence </h1>
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<p class="summary" style="color: #000;">[Originally Published in Issue 3] </p>
<p class="byline">Carter Vance </p>
<p>T<span style="font-family: Georgia;">aking the express bus from Battle River to <br>
Swastika, the reversed magnetic rail from Paris to <br>
Luxembourg, same windy wind of shielding<br>
tundra held out cutting wire, stake pins<br>
put through the permafrost in four foot's depth, <br>
I watched ice fractles form mathematic on windowpane, <br>
haunting plains from here to Rosetown.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The last of the city lights fading in
2for1 vodka <br>
bottles, in tincrinkle of cough drop packages, <br>
only longvanished heavens, bleaching shine of colours <br>
only drawing closer shades of Winter's paradise <br>
only damning in faint feeling onetime echo of <br>
voice in the rumble of car on concrete, crossing the 417. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Your presence consumes this place as
four strong <br>
winds, forever bonded to the lonesome glint of <br>
overpass lines, ghostly pastures spread about <br>
in the dancing of fireflies on Northlander conductor <br>
wheels; your breath in the exhaust of stream trailing <br>
through yonder nighttime's souldark, clouding </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">above Thunder Bay in its diamondrough
keeping. <br>
I wanted to take a train car all out to Bonavista, <br>
the taste of salt and cod fishery encircling me, <br>
body swamped in Atlantic's deadend depth. <br>
I'd still know tones heavy in the way you spoke<br>
about chopping of evergreen trunks; I'd hear it, <br>
even in the cedars of Lebanon.</span></p>
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