From Issue 47/3: On the Train Across Canada, a Poem by Meredith Quartermain

On the Train Across Canada

by Meredith Quartermain

We living-units packaged, shipped,
make good time goods time
lumber near Kamloops, Clearwater,

cows, belly to grass, legs folded,
cud chewing Canada of fur-traders
mappers of rivers
this runningness tagged
this cooling snaking fish-hiding
tagged
Thompson, Mackenzie

the dust settled
the dregs settled
the debt settled
the legacy settled

they shrink-wrapped
mîtosiskâw: there are many trees
they barcoded pine, spruce, aspen

unreeling real to steel rails
movie slither capitalthink
stream over rock onto tongue
loll out mouth of writer, reader, rider

puff snuff whiteout blizzard
silver wire untied
word bubbles, word minds, word winds
storm out of bag

—

Meredith Quartermain is a Vancouver-based poet, essayist, and fiction writer whose most recent book is U Girl: a novel (Talonbooks, 2016).