Happy Thanksgiving!

In keeping with the season, a cranberry-themed excerpt from The News:

Seven Weeks - Rob Taylor

Each year, Thanksgiving and Christmas,
I make the cranberry sauce. Everyone
around the table agrees it’s the best
they’ve ever had, even those
who used to swear by the canned stuff.
I used to swear by the canned stuff.

At first everyone assumed your mother
made it, but she would always clarify.
Now they ask how I do it and I say
I follow the instructions on the bag.
They ask what I put in it and I say
water and sugar and cranberries.

Every Thanksgiving it’s the same,
then, amazingly, again each Christmas—
something to fill the spaces between mouthfuls.
When we tell them about you this Christmas
they’re going to lose their minds. Then once
they’ve calmed down we’ll go back to eating

and maybe later they’ll ask about the cranberry sauce
and I’ll say Instructions Water Sugar Cranberries.
Or maybe we’ll just keep talking about you
until it seems we’ve conjured you from our dreams
and you’re there, flesh and blood, in the room,
which of course you will be.

The News launches in Vancouver on October 27th. It will be like Thanksgiving, but with poems instead of wishbones.

All the best to you and yours this holiday weekend!