Kelly-Anne Riess

You never know how your life would have gone if you made different choices. Things always only continue to go forward.

If I Gave Up
by Kelly-Anne Riess

I would have followed you

to Edmonton

found a job waitressing babysitting

even though I have three degrees

a temporary fix

while you finished school

near mountains where you climb

I wish I'd known you

when you didn't know what you wanted

then maybe you would've followed me to the Peg

I could never live in Manitoba you said

would feel bad if I gave up

anything for you

so you ended it

even so you couldn't stay away

visited me every summer

until she moved in

after graduation you went up north

how's that better than Winnipeg

you work 20 days on

fly down to her on days off

it could be me

"If I Gave Up" by Kelly-Anne Riess, from To End a Conversation. © Thistledown Press Ltd., 2008. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/10/11

Your Catfish Friend

So, tomorrow night is a girls' night. The anticipation of girls' night, especially when the first cool fronts of fall have begun to blow through our cities is one of the few really childlike moments of stress-free (mostly stress-free) excitement that I have. In 2009, anyway. We will drink and eat and talk about everything from major works of literature to our long past, minor love affairs. Anyway, this one is for them. They know who they are.

Your Catfish Friend
by Richard Brautigan

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."