No Comment

Alessandra Naccarato

I’ve heard there is a room where hooded
women enter, writing dates on the wall
with the torn edge of their finger. I’ve heard
you can cipher the numbers to bodies, to
the graceless edge of some men’s beds. Is

I’ve heard there is a room where hooded
women enter, writing dates on the wall
with the torn edge of their finger. I’ve heard
you can cipher the numbers to bodies, to
the graceless edge of some men’s beds. Is
this what you call justice? If so, why not
pull back the hood. They say the room locks
from the outside. Just wondering how you
got out? If you could show us, on your body.
For example, one man we publicly shamed.
He’s tied up in court, if you’re looking for press
credentials. How many women stand
in this room? Where do they piss and how
often? Can you comment on the man suing
your spokeswoman for slander? How close
was your body to his mouth? Did you choose
his name by lottery or straws? How will you
answer if you’re sued for this poem?

Alessandra Naccarato is a writer, performer, and educator based in Vancouver. Winner of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writer, and finalist for the 2014 CBC Poetry Prize, her writing has appeared across North America. She is currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing at UBC. “No Comment” will also be included in Room‘s upcoming 40th Anniversary Anthology, Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine (March 2017). It is republished here as part of the No Comment project.

More Writing from the No Comment Project

No Comment by Alessandra Naccarato
Erase and Rewind by Meghan Bell
White house, where some family lived upstairs by Chelene Knight
Loyalty and Violence by Ruth Daniell
Burning Bridges by Joelle Barron
Penknife by Ellie Sawatzky
for play by Kayla Czaga
back, cover by Elaine Corden
Sex Work Solidarity as Healing by Amber Dawn
I Was Once That Girl by Jen Sookfong Lee
On Receiving Bad News by Mallory Tater
The Disappearing Woman by Leah Horlick
Boys Will Be Boys by Dina Del Bucchia
Nicomekl River by Claire Matthews
Knowing Better by Anonymous
Monster by Mikiko Galpin
Reframing the Montréal Massacre by Maureen Bradley
Testimony, Part X by Anonymous
Broken Heart Emoji, Crystal Ball Emoji, Stars Emoji by Kyla Jamieson
Bits by Carleigh Baker
Metamorphosis 6: 401-674: A Paraphrase in Still Pictures by Annick MacAskill
black pearls by Jónína Kirton
Not Yet by Juliane Okot Bitek
Sei Turni (6 spells for #CanLit) by Amber Dawn

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