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List of Duties in a Subarctic Dive Bar
If the temperature outside is twenty-five below
or colder
leave all faucets running and flush the toilets
hourly.
R. has a two-drink limit. A. likes a coaster. Remember,
Mrs. O. takes a chilled pilsner glass
with her bottle of Blue. Never
keep her waiting.
If someone reveals residential school horrors,
listen with your whole body.
If a customer becomes unresponsive,
and overdose is suspected,
call the nursing station, then administer the naloxone
kept behind the bar.
Be sure to write everything down in the incident book.
This is your therapy.
At the end of each shift, pour a kettle of boiling water
into the ice well drain. It keeps down the bioslime.
Wrap your cash in the blue vinyl bag and feed it
to the Snake.
You are entitled to one staff drink. Choose wisely.
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Tara Borin is a poet and writer living in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021; their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021) and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in various literary journals both online and in print. Tara is the 2022 winner of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Borealis Prize: Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution.
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Emily Rapport, Wednesday Night, 30×40, aqua-oil on canvas, ca. 2004. Used by permission of the artist.
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Author: Terence Winch
