The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

By Hollay Ghadery

"It has not mattered much what anyone else thought. I will always try to catch and express a little of the immortal beauty and enchantment of the world into which I have sometimes been privileged to see for a moment." 
—Lucy Maud Montgomery

It has not mattered much what anyone else thought.
I will always long for a little illusion; those old
evenings when I'd stand there peeling the moon. I
had no name, just an amniotic glow. Don't ask how,
 
I will always try to catch and express a little of our
atomic ruin and fashion it into a weapon of life— 
anything to give sense to my scuffed eyes, clear
knees. I’ve become uncomfortably cautious of
 
the immortal beauty & enchantment of the world into which
I have been born. It's as fresh as it ever was, just further
out of reach. But you either have faith or you fall, so I
collect my tear salt and—be still my bleating heart— 
 
I have sometimes been privileged to see for a moment,
so clearly, I could slice open a cherry blossom vein with
surgical precision. I could draw a circle around my wild
fire and call myself a sure shot.          

---

​Felt Cute, Might Delete Later

For Lucy Maud Montgomery

By ​Hollay Ghadery

Not a Cavendish shoreline in sight, just
shadows yawning tall as angels in the garden,
                                                                                    crocuses,
each small as a baby’s thumb, and I’m posed
on the porch, flounce
                                    of summer
                                                            in my skirt.


Hard-boiled sun and barbiturate blue sky are asleep
in my bones but I’m still predictable in my demand
                                                                        for more.


So,
 
tell me what it’s like to stay asleep
                                                after the dream ends—not a Cavendish shoreline in sight
—and how to exist in a tide;
how sometimes you fight and sometimes,
                                                             you let it take you places.                   

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Runaway Universe

By Hollay Ghadery

No matter which way we look in space,
                                                                I owe You some kind of explanation
we see billions of galaxies rushing away from us— 
                                                                I ran away in short intervals, to keep a sense of proportion
A person in any other world would see the same thing:
                                                                Do You realize, I wonder, what submerged identities we                                                                            women can have?
a universe expanding at breakneck speed
                                                                To practice the restraints of civilization, not explore its                                                                              possibilities
And the faster the runaway, the greater the shift
                                                                What to do with my freedom now that I’ve stolen it?

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Hollay Ghadery is a writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in various literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Room, CAROUSEL, The Antigonish Review, Grain, and The Fiddlehead. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in Spring 2021.