Postcards from Banff
by Monica Meneghetti

Postcard i.

Hello from the Rockies!!!!!! Where dancers pirouette on the side of buildings. Yesterday, a raven dropped a chunk of chocolate cake on me from its perch in a Douglas fir. Just after Christmas, an elk got mini-lites wrapped in its antlers. A local is facing charges because a bear climbed onto her balcony to eat birdseed. One year ago, a girl tripped into Bow Falls while taking a picture. The current trapped her in a submerged shopping cart. Elk know to look both ways before crossing. No one seems surprised.

Postcard ii.

Summer? Forgive me my soup and pity. I suffer winterwhite sun for this miserly reward of sodden growth, transforming elk shit from bridge mix to cowpies, dousing camping plans.

Must get away. Tremulous voices plug an invisible tube in my ear, sucking life through the ravenous ringing device in reverse intravenous.

I need to run. Get as far as Tim Horton’s. Where I order soup. Turkey and wild rice, three hours after lunch rush, gloppy and slow to move. Like the young girl behind the counter. I would ask her to add water but all the metal through her face and disillusionment weigh her down. The 3 ft. runway between crullers and customers is clearly her personal Everest. I drop money onto the coffee-stained counter, step outside, hold my styrofoam bowl out to the dripping sky and stir in the rain.

Postcard iii.

I’ve been waiting years for my own PO box and 2 seconds for sex. Wasabi peas, ear candles, sea-salt scrubs, and STDs are easier to get than a decent place to live and all the clothes in the stores are size two.

Postcard iv.

Last call. Another 20-something shredder fails to get lucky. Gulps a late-night slice from Aardvaark’s. Above low-slung waistband of extra-wide-leg combat pants, his stomach heaves. Half-chewed cheese lurches beneath nipple-piercings, sluggishly steaming on concrete under streetlamps. A raven feasts.

Postcard v.

Suburban flower gardens lurk under chicken-wire cages while ungulates feed from hanging begonia baskets. Tinseled trees prostrate beside dumpsters displaying stickers of two bears doing it doggie-style. One guy passes on a bike balancing two skinny lattes on a bartender’s tray. Another carries groceries home on a uni-cycle. Someday you will meet a magpie on Ecstasy, DJ Beaver spinning at a rave, martens pinging e-mail to pikas with pierced noses. Then will you believe?