Poem-a-Day

<sup>What does it mean to go nowhere? Where is “nowhere”? It has been used as a deterrent to us, as children, that we would disappear if …
          —Joshua Whitehead, in “On Indigenous Joy and Futurisms: The Affects of our Literatures,” The Capilano Review

What is the relation of the dead to what has not yet happened, to the future? All the future is the construction in which their “imagination” is engaged.
          —John Berger, “On the Economy of the Dead”</sup>

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
                                       “dark figures set against” 
We will ferry you 
                                       “white of the snowfield”
little bird, beta, chandra
                                       “they walked amid vast”
from the pretend fence 
                                       “farm fields & snowdrifts”
where you laid down 
                                       “in the black of”
your pulse, nodded quiet 
     ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
     ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
     ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
     ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
its thundering, red traffic
                                       “an almost moonless night”
In our tongues we 
                                       “wrapped in a blanket” 
will pack more names 
                                       “diapers, baby wipes, mittens” 
for the moon than 
                                       “& two toy cars”
any sky could carry 
                                        “one red, one white”