Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, and writing instructor. His poetry books include Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books, 2008), I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press, 2007), and Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (ECW Press, 2003). He is the Fiction & Poetry Editor for This Magazine and has his own imprint through Mansfield Press. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

Crusade

Salim Gold

One lover’s lips spill into another’s;
Our two combined thighs bandy up and down;
One flesh confronts and conforms to the next—
Until we’re shouting, organ by organ.
When I breach your castle’s molten marble,
I please you by seizing every treasure;

Night Swim

Céleste Parr

A large condo with high ceilings and a wall of windows. Spacious, elegant, minimalist. A sparkling late-night skyline. Upstage is a King-sized bed with the mattress leaning halfway off, touching the hardwood floor. A large piece of white fabric is tangled between the bare mattress and the bare box spring.  Downstage right is a plush, microsuede sofa and ottoman. Near it, a liquor cabinet and a variety of glasses, flutes, tumblers.

Sybill

Bert Bailey

"All of Toronto seemed to have shown up for that awful production!" Phil complained.

"It wasn't so dreadful, was it?" someone asked.

Sybill's eyes lit up, and she almost rose out of her seat to add:

"Yes, and didn't Millie say she saw Christopher Plummer in the lobby?" Everyone turned to her end of the table. This was the first thing she had said since the three couples had arrived from a nearby theatre.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

- Paul Gauguin.

100, rue Blainville Ouest
- Gwenaël Bélanger

Volunteers for Issue 10

For copy-editing this issue of MTLS thanks:

- Lequanne Collins-Bacchus

- Amanda Tripp

- Claudia Del Balso

Acknowledgement

MTLS is grateful to Jetioluwa Olafimihan (Cotta Red Creative Studio) for her hard work on web development and management.

Dedication

To the memory of Stephen Potts