Wade Bell is the author of four books of fiction: The North Saskatchewan River Book, Coach House Press, 1977; A Destroyer of Compasses, Guernica Editions, 2003; No Place Fit for a Child, Guernica, 2009; Tracie's Revenge, Guernica, 2012 (Shortlisted for the Re-Lit Award).
He was born and raised in Edmonton, lived in Ottawa for a dozen years, Barcelona and Vulpellac, Catalunya, for five and now Calgary.
Moonlight
(a chemotherapy observation)
Moonlight makes me thirsty
it should be water
but the water here
is sand and the sand
is sprinkled with orange stones
that might be jewels
I could collect
and give to women
who value that sort of thing
and watch their eyes
spell gratitude or even love
and they might open for me
on the sheet the moonlight makes
and the course of our lives might change
but all I want
what I need
is water.
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"Moonlight" originally appeared in Freefall Magazine
