Out of the longest shadows when the road lay looped and black he found a girl with a crooked smile in the headlights of the car. He picked her up. She slid into the seat. She was lipstick, rouge, long legs and cigarettes, slightly tarnished, not a lucky coin, and he knew he was in trouble when she put her bare feet on the dash. She flashed some thigh, so he kept his eyes on the dark ribboned road, the rocks and brush on either side. She told him tales of forty pounders, mornings naked waking on the grass, how she took the cherries off young boys and how at night she cried for all the babies she’d given up. He knew he could’ve kept her safe, but bought her breakfast, left on the table a bit of cash and went to wash his hands. She took the money, hit the road, and found another ride.
David Fraser from After All the Scissor Work Is Done published by Leaf Press 2016
"Good luck with the Launch, David. If that Pick-up Girl Poem is any indication, it looks like a great book. I like the way the poem doen't "look away" from the subject nor slide into a comfortable ending." - Bruce Rice
(Bruce Rice has published four books of poetry, including Coteau's Descent into Lima (1996) and The Illustrated Statue of Liberty (2003), which received the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Bruce's first collection, Daniel,(1988) received the Canadian Authors Association Award, and his most recent title Life in the Canopy was also a finalist in the Sask Book Awards. He also received Grain magazine's 2002 Anne Szumigalksi Award for the best poem or sequence published in Grain that year. His work has appeared in Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, Grain, Canadian Author and Bookman, and Event. His work has been broadcast on CBC radio and he has collaborated on several poetry performances and excerpts which were performed in Globe Theatre's "On The Line" series.)