after tree planting near Campbell River, Vancouver Island
we yo-yo the cut-block all week, vulture-flair
forest clawed to the tissue on terminal broadcast
root-dislodge, plucked earth swung dissonant
an allergic reaction to the bit and bridle
of chainsaws scratching an itch into its side
whump of old-growth shortening its angle full horizontal
end of the week we burn the empty seedling boxes
on a fragged junction of logging road, damp sawdust-
caked pant-legs kilned, flame’s limbo
confused by its incarnation, blazed-mouths suckling
at the gloss-edge of waxed cardboard like hard candy
from the treeline a presence darkens back
later in John’s room, liquor waterlogged in a dozen faces,
ten-dollar poker games with the hotel owner
ugly fucker stripped from chthonic parentage, watershed
of bloat and sweat, Bacchaeic slur of his eyes familiar
with a species of cruelty wives don’t remark on
around him art deco exhibits of beer cans arranged
in miniature Stonehenges, mapping the tilt
and declination of weather’s cold compress
against an old ache—all of us audience to our own
title credits, wondering what happens next
he gloats about murder, rifled laughter nearly Promethean,
“I got a cougar in my freezer, goddamn beauty too!”
we follow him like one of Bram Stoker’s attendants,
deadbolt shed tomb-like in the back where he lifts the white lid
on our disbelief—that stillness unavenged
apocryphal even after I touch the snarl
of her eye, tawny fur blood-crusted, all of us sick with wonder
at something that should not have been so still
outside, drunk-clung to a severed faith in things,
ocean-tug of moonlight, salt curing the air
against a boat ramp the laboured gasping of an exit wound
as the tide brings an anger back into the world
from subTerrain #73