I’m going to try to be as honest as I can with this letter.
At first, I didn’t like you.
We met at the airport. Do you remember what you said?
Oh, so you’re the goalie? I’m going to put so many past you.
In time I would learn that that was who you were. There was a level of playfulness to these bold statements – you would’ve said the same thing to Lundqvist – but also a sense of sincerity. You believed in competition, in cultivating the best version of you. In doing so, you raised the standard of us …
* poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue.
Bio:
Ben von Jagow is a Canadian poet currently living in Prague. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Canadian Literature, Prairie Fire, the Antigonish Review, EVENT, Amsterdam Quarterly, the Stockholm Review of Literature, and the Literary Review of Canada, among other publications (see benvj.com).