Émilie
At Karina’s in Casselman
Eyes showing my true colours
I was looking for a spot
She was checking out my boots
Calfskin leather or Indonesian raccoon that the girl in Transit, upset by my filthy badger face,
tried to insist that I buy with waterproof spray
I said: “Listen, Honey, I don’t go out when it’s raining or cold
I’m too scared my heart will break apart”
I don’t go out
Except maybe to Karina’s
Because my sisters dance there
Dressed in Ardène
Greasy fake chicken
They’re friggin’ gorgeous
Because they’re not helpless
Immunized against Satan
And names like Serge or Gaétan
Dirty hands, jackal hands
Chip hands, sharp metal
Black nails
Smoke
At Karina’s in Casselman
Pink tequila in the frying pan
No one on stage now for ages, except groups that make them money
The girls are there like Roman centurions
But they don’t even try to make a cent
They’ll skinny dip in your drink for you
Maybe to get another sip
Like Émilie, my chubby beauty
In your fairy leggings
A Grimm Brothers fairytale
Just looking at you feels like a sin
You had pool crack
I had fish eyes
You were in and all over my face
And after one shot, I decided I liked girls
A bit awkward to feel that kick
Émilie, please just flick my bic
I’m sure girls aren’t as much like freaks
It would just take some guts
For me to sit with you
You’d talk about the heater in your mother’s basement
And how you’d left your room in a mess
So no one would forget you were once a kid
You wouldn’t speak French to me
You don’t even remember how
You’d try to convince me you used to speak it
Then Diane-with-the-yellow-hair would serve us a sling
Life would be so easy Emilie, don’t you think?
If I weren’t the way I am
I’d dance there, too
I’m good at faking love
I’ve got the beat
I learn fast
I don’t even have to try, my aura’s always cheap
Cheap like when I thought your lilac negligee was touching
There was something poetic when your nip slipped out as if to say “I want a place
in your clownlike happiness, your Club Med dyke look”
The rest of the time, Émilie, I make kids and dads
I lay off the dads and keep the kids
And then I get ugly
Dreaming of being lesbian in Casselman in my thirties
The Caesars are brown
Worcestershire full blast
It was the boss’s thing
He’s been dead for two years
Stroke in the toilets out back
He held onto the side
Like I’d hold onto you, Émilie
Wouldn’t it do you good to save somebody?
A little mother, a wannabe poet
The kind of girl who doesn’t know where to stand in the group photo
But who would like to smash in the face of the bitch
Lying on the ground with her legs in the air
Thinking she’s great at posing everybody
With her teeth three shades less yellow than mine
I’m a smoker, Émilie
I even smoked in a balloon
Baloney Motherfriggin’ shit
I smoked so I wouldn’t die hurt and sick of seeing my black-eyed face in the bathroom mirror
at my cheap house in the sticks, full of wannabe hippies who put goat cheese
in their grilled cheese and pickle sandwiches
Émilie, I put wieners in my KD
And ketchup too
I could put a bib on you
To keep your breasts clean
For when you go to work at Karina’s in Casselman
Where you were already lost
Before we made it to the highway exit
Marjolaine Beauchamp
In 2010, Marjolaine won the Silver Medal at the World Slam Poetry contest in France. She has published her work with the Éditions de l’Écrou, Aux Plexus, and Fourrer le feu. Her plays, Taram and M.I.L.F, which she wrote and performed in, were produced by the Théâtre du Trillium, where she is an affiliated writer. Marjolaine performed the first set for Richard Desjardins’s Existoire tour. In 2018, her play MILF was published by Éditions Somme Toute, and she was the Outaouais Guest of Honour at the SLO book fair and literary festival. Gender relations, experimental pieces involving altering and modifying literary and visual work, contemporary writing practices, and community cultural engagement are at the heart of Marjolaine’s interests. In December 2018, she received two awards for her play MILF by CALQ, the Quebec arts and letters council: Literary Work of the Year and Creator of the Year.