Deirdre Maultsaid (she/her) is a queer writer based in Vancouver, Canada. Her writing is rich, and provocative.
“Does any parent want to be in a hospital hallway, after a long afternoon of decisions, staring…”
Read essay on page 64 here: http://3elementsreview.com/current-journal
Make-a-Wish
By Deirdre Maultsaid
//Things I love:
Bacardi drunk young men
still boasting, lips sloppy
pickups that roll out,
up, over, before, still, after, then.
Black ice car fresheners swaying and clacking.
Sulphur, tang, copper, damp.
The lonely sight
of cedar bough underbellies.
Things I dreamed:
Primal brutal damp,
a sick tick tock,
the shock that time was black. Continue reading
Red Camaro
By
Deirdre Maultsaid
//Ruthless, the sun shone:
ironing, scorching root and stem.
Its muscles flared, a genderblind juggernaut.
Suburban, possessed, the lilacs whisper.
In the shadowless nought—
on the soulless gravel—
I could see
the rocket hulk of the red Camaro.
Listen to man’s lament
By
Deirdre Maultsaid
//I never loved you.
Your epaulettes flapped, your wig and peerage slipped;
your jealousy was black oil in your bilge.
You had (who was that figure at the prow, that noseless rosewood lady?)
See, I forgot what the medals meant,
your piracy.
You promised: you and your Viking sister in your Black Beauty Daytons
would kick the lip gloss right off my enemies.
But my spine was candy; me you ate;
Washerwomen, Blessings
by Deirdre Maultsaid
From This crisis, these blessings: essays by Deirdre Maultsaid (Trafford Publishing)
First appeared in Canadian Woman Studies, Vol. 22, Summer, 2003
//1.
I am a washerwoman standing on unstable ground.
I see all in its proper place: aquifer, granite, dust,
sideyard, water pump,
a basin full, my own brawny arms,
my washboard-abraded hands still wringing.
Work is its own reward.
Be careful: contemplation could bring grief.
The world is.
The world does not know me.
2.
Ada Williams says of her work, “The summer I was 15, I went up to Halifax and earned a few dollars. I found a job doing housework, where I had to wash a huge pile of clothes every day while the mistress sat and watched me. I stood it for one week, and left. She refused to pay me anything and was very angry. I went down to the waterfront and got on Cat Weston’s vessel and started for home… Continue reading
