Burial
A path can always be drawn: I see itbeyond the fallen pine. A row of cedar
just above a broken knee of land. Winter
topples around me: a finger snap, moan,
binge-drinking moon. From a distance,
the hours arriving home approach detritus
and I’m laughing at the loss, pinching myself
in a dream. Chewed sinew of hinterland, crushed
ash of bone. You’ll be forgotten. The bruised shore
sips the lakes that keep it from thawing. This life
is one of them: memory, falling asleep alone
in a snow tunnel. Huddled to the wall, perfectly
warm. Shaded from cold, they saw I was missing—
gone, removed, malignant. That could be now
except for only familiar regret, the snap of tinder
and waiting: what if the snow buckled in? It takes
a step to make a footprint, a trail already laid.
The cardinals gawk at me, lean on sun-ridden
sky, cloudless, everything like glaciers. The road
flashes, catches into blindness, but to where?
Joshua Chris Bouchard’s collection of poetry and photographs, Let This Be the End of Me (Bad Books Press), was short-listed for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. He is the author of WOOL WATER (words(on)pages press) and Portraits (In/Words Press). His poetry is forthcoming in Echolocation, and has appeared in Carousel, Poetry is Dead, PRISM international, carte blanche, Arc, The Puritan,and more. Bouchard was long-listed for a CBC Poetry Prize and was an honourable mention for the John Newlove Poetry Award and Blodwyn Memorial Prize. He edits BAD DOG @BadDogMag, an online poetry magazine. Twitter: @jcbouchard_
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