The Chinese Execution

Michael Power is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

The Chinese Execution is like a cat stepping across a
ledge—deliberate, soft, and careful. Some of Fleck’s poems are
written in the second person, and have a distant feel to them. Others
speak in the first person, not without humor. “Dad’s Secretary:
1945” recalls both people and times with giddy nostalgia, poking fun
at World War II fashion and sensibility.

This exploration of the past slips easily into loneliness. “November
Legacy,” the last poem in the book, carries a definite feeling of
loss: “I have of you / love / left over after / twenty years
cultivation / this explosion of red refracted through the / bleak trees
of my sudden tears ...” The image of the coyote is used throughout as
a metaphor for loneliness. The poet feels a sense of kinship with this
creature in “Leaving Banff”: “Coyote skirts the edge / of
lamplight at the bus stop. / he hears something in the wind / sits back
to answer / spots me watching.”

Like the cat on a ledge, this collection balances well—falling
somewhere between a light sense of humor and a lonely open space.