Installation

By Colleen Addison

 

 

on every winged dove a prayer is written and I can see the words, scrawled in blue or black or grey with pencil, spinning as the birds spin on their strings: for what do we all wish? love or money or health but I want none of these; now in this decorated hall I want nothing more than the scalpels to cease; I want no more operations. the doctors have pecked at me like they were real doves, scrambling for the last specks of seed or in this case, tumour. I turn my head, and true to form, even these false birds twist beaks in my direction, cardboard straining towards me, scrambling too if they could, with their fake feathers flapping white like a doctor’s coat. I am reaching my fingers for my scars when through the sculpture strings I see my friend, one of those out of so many newly tumour-ridden; I have forgotten this, what her prayer would be. for what does she wish? a surgery, swift and smooth as a dove’s wing

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Colleen Addison completed a Master's degree in Creative Writing, followed by a PhD in health information; she then promptly got sick herself. She now lives, writes, and heals on a small island off the coast of Vancouver, Canada. Her recent work has featured in Halfway Down the Stairs, River Teeth, and Little Free Lit Mag. She has been nominated for a Best of the Net award and is writing a romance novel and a poetry chapbook, rather stupidly at the same time