july 12, 2021

i cannot say some of these words
even if it meant it would end
pollution
in the ancestral waters
so to speak
so instead
i am on the boat on the nelson
with water to my knees

and i want to tell the bailer
scooping water out from the
boat with a mop bucket dumping
it back into the nelson –
you might as well let this girl go
let me drown it out here

this is what i do in the terrible way
i have always done things
i am on
the nelson river
by my granny’s house
and i just want someone to know

but i would rather let the boat sink

i could explain years of silence
how it unfolded
and the shame embedded in the
hole in the bottom of the boat
and the way i have always dreamed
about drowning

so i did not know i could save the
boat from drowning and

this place feels like
the place i used to hide
when i carried secrets

i am in the boat
but i don’t know that the bailer
can save me
there’s a hole in the boat
and we’re going to drown it