Ken Cathers as a B.A. from the University of Victoria and a M.A. from York University in Toronto. He has been published in numerous periodicals, anthologies and has just released his eighth book of poetry, entitled Home Town with Impspired Press of England. He has also recently published a chapbook with broke press in Canada and has another chapbook, entitled “Legoland Noir” forthcoming from Block Party Press in Toronto.
His work has appeared in publications in Canada, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland and Africa. Most recently it has appeared in Zoetic Press, Wool Gathering Review and thewildword.
He lives on Vancouver Island with his family in a small colony of trees.
drowning
was told never to save a drowning man never jump in throw out a line something to hang on to. was told never to wake those who walk through dream that panic of first touch their sudden, unbreakable grip not the embrace you once imagined. was told nothing of the darkness that lies below the shadows that swim through dream. how patiently they wait. how desperate they are to pull you down.
he was the brother
he was the brother I slept with twice my size all knees and elbows a coiled anger. dirt poor we handed down doubled up it was his bed and small enough without me in it became my first lesson in mercy, how he hogged the blankets pushed me to the cold and I curled against the darkness fought for every inch kept score forgave nothing
things break down
nothing of us left but the touch the idea of some shared oneness. it does not fade becomes part of the change we make in each other. some unhealed scar. just the vague shape of what you once were a face glimpsed in sunlight. . . a day by the river where we swam naked. and always the undertow carries us back the ghosts summoned the magic remade everything almost perfect again. nothing but the memory of touch that lingers the way we become the pulse of waves entwined with rain, river, the reflection of clouds caught in the downstream flow and swept away
impspired 