We can’t count the Cree,
the Mi’kmaq and Métis and Haida
women who have disappeared.
Some turn up on farms
or rivers, like Priscilla did
the day before Grade 9
and no one could tell it was her but Ida
knew by the heart on her shoulder.
There’s another good thing about tattoos
Ida said. I remember it was Ida
because last year they found her
in the grass by the old highway
and her arm said Priscilla
in the same place.
Some days I want to forget
more than where I put my keys.
At least I can walk to the river
without jumping in.
The bridge is a problem.
Like railway ties, two-by-fours
balance on cables from bank
to bank. Planks helter-skelter above
barely clear the current.
And the Gaspereau keeps turning
to shallows. The cow path
there dissolves in muck
so I crouch on the planks and focus
until it’s Diefenbaker Bridge
thrumming with trucks and trailers
bent on Waskesiu before dark.
If you’d rested like that
wouldn’t someone have tried
to talk you out of it?
Namoyâhpô,
Ehâ, ekosi.
So I keep walking
down Gaspereau Road,
my mind on Priscilla and Ida
and the others, around
curves with narrow shoulders
and steep ditches, thinking
any of us’d be hard to miss.
When a Honda whines
into the bend, I can’t tell
if the driver’s grin is hello
or you’re lucky this time.
For three more steps
towards Gaspereau
a grasshopper steers
clear of summer’s end
in my crooked hand.
Nahmoyâhpô: no way
Ehâ, ekasi: yes, it’s true / that’s it
