LETTER FROM THE THIRD OF NOVEMBER

 Erin Wilson

A little boy

in the street,

wearing a citron and black striped toque

with a heavy pompom,

eases back his shoulders

and opens up his chest,

tipping his head back

in curiosity and awe

at the noise

of a passing aeroplane.

Tempting the world,

he walks

down the street

like this.

It is now,

upon seeing him,

that a small

polluted

valve in myself

shuts off,

and I recall hope.

Erin Wilson's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Salamander Magazine, Crab Creek Review, takahē, The Prairie Journal, A Magazine of Canadian Literature, Pembroke Magazine, Hamilton Stone Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, The Honest Ulsterman, and elsewhere. Her first collection is At Home with Disquiet, published by Circling Rivers Press. She lives and writes in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.