<i>Éviter Tout Contact Avec L'Eau</i>, 2016

Éviter Tout Contact Avec L'Eau, 2016

Way back when, we say. A fragmented sentence, followed by an invisible ellipsis, forgot where it was going. All of the actions that happened after when erased by time. So, let me try to redraw (pencil lines on top of unleaded runnels).

Last summer when I moved I went to the Lachine Canal and put my feet in your waters, to let you know I was here. Pay my respects, right? Our mingling molecules must have meant something. Way back then, I made your acquaintance. Then I was swept up by eddies of readings and writings and movings and I forgot.

On November 11, just after midnight, the city of Montréal dumped 8 billion litres of untreated wastewater into the river. They put up a sign: Évitez tout contact avec l’eau.

Erase its number from your phone
and do not respond to its emails.
When it tries to speak to you, turn around and walk away.
Speak of it only in the third person, disown it.
When someone asks to talk to you about your river
say: “I have no river.”
Silent water treatment.

For a full PDF, click here.

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