Indexical Elegies by Jon Paul Fiorentino Page B

best friend from the old street …
    I will let the rush-hour dust or the blowing
    snow or the dance-hall fumes fill my lungs
    I will simply wait, let my side-splitting body
    fail under the flattering lights in the hallway
    Of the underfunded Concordia Hospital
    and don’t dream of visiting
    But listen, there’s a show tonight
    at the legion hall
    And I have half a liver left and
    a hatchback with a quarter tank
    I’m not hard to be had

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Elizabeth Bachinsky, Darren Bifford, Jason Camlot, Rachel Cyr, Tara Flanagan, Lilly Fiorentino, John Goldbach, David McGimpsey, Evan Munday, Sachiko Murakami, Ian Orti, Marisa Grizenko, Christina Palassio,Mike Spry,Darren Wershler.
    My family.
    Special thanks to Kevin Connolly, a wonderful editor.
    Special thanks to Alana Wilcox for her friendship, guidance and patience.
    The Nicole Brossard epigraph is from Lovhers .
    The John Berryman epigraphs are from Dream Songs .
    The Gilbert Sorrentino epigraph is from Corrosive Sublimate .
    The Charles Sanders Peirce epigraph is from ‘What Is a Sign?’
    The Robert Kroetsch epigraph is from The Hornbooks of Rita K .
    The Jessica Grim epigraph is from Fray .
    Earlier versions of some of these poems have appeared in The Walrus , Jacket , Prism , The Capilano Review , Scratching the Service: The Post- Prairie Landscape (Plug-in Institute of Contemporary Art, 2008). ‘Mentholism’ and ‘Little Grey Chevette’ were originally written for broadcast on cbc Radio One. Thanks to cbc.
    â€˜Famous Grey Chevette’ is for Christopher Charney.
    â€˜Transprairie’ is for Louis Cabri, who suggested the term.
    The ‘Indexical Elegies’ sequence is for Robert Allen, in memoriam.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of the novel Stripmalling , which was shortlisted for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and three poetry collections, including The Theory of the Loser Class , which was shortlisted for the A. M. Klein Prize. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches writing at Concordia University, edits Matrix magazine and runs Snare Books.

Typeset in My Underwood and Adobe Caslon Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2010
    This print run includes a limited edition of 52 geographically challenged copies, lettered and signed by the author.
    Edited by Kevin Connolly
Designed by Alana Wilcox
Author photo by Marisa Grizenko

    Coach House Books
80 bpNichol Lane
Toronto m5s 3j4
Canada
    416 979 2217
800 367 6360
    [email protected]
www.chbooks.com