Canadian Dreams

by Gina Williams

​

Night trains scream around the bend,
rattle brittle dreams as sleeping loons
drift apart beneath the Corn Moon.

​

They say the crumbling shacks
at the edge of town
are where Ojibwe elders go to die.

​

At dawn, birds cry out to mates—
beavers slap, birchbark canoes glide
silently to the other side.

​

We fry northern pike for breakfast,
watch fat bubble to the surface,
tails curl as if in final, futile resistance.

​

From here, you can smell the fire-forged knife
edge of everything, trace sinew-sutured lines
on parchment maps to the end.

​

Wild blueberries glisten after a passing storm—
we climb the hill to gather basketfuls for cobbler,
listening for ghosts in lodgepole pines.

​

Light slants through broken plywood walls—
an elder takes last breaths in a box
as we sup on taken fish and fruit.

​

Beneath a northern star