WOLVERINE SEASON, by Kasia van Schaik

i.

This dream of       freestanding pine

and wolverine tracks       a field

in white spring       by cabinlight  

this opening      through which you

mark your hunger         

          a skirt of dogs 

following      indecipherable human

my smell is       tenderness to them  

my name an opening      

follow             the river now

crossable by boat     the river    

where I first learned the word boat  

it was here I saw      the sun

complaining in a glass 

where I watched     you train your dogs     

to urinate in circles     

come

follow     the too-slow river    boatless now and deep     the river

yes      

ii.

wet-footed through the shivering   

nightfield       who controls the path 

two masts and a question       cracking

my teeth         who’s there   

hello  

I saw the sky for a moment / How

unbeautiful    the too-slow river

how indecipherable its bank     your face

lights up           like the red weather

of another planet    this question

hurts me    

iii.

yes I knew then      for death

always waits beside a river    this one

has no name     except in spring  

the blind swimmer reaches the bank

flips over on her back             

this one knocking

on your window hello         

posing an earnest question      can you

hear me   

    

Somewhere out there is the wilderness    

alone beside the river    it’s wolverine season   

the red planet in orbit  

   

we know

nothing

Kasia van Schaik is a South African-born writer and critic based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. She is the author of the chapbook, Sea Burial Laws According to Country, and her writing and criticism have appeared in Electric Literature, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Jacket2, The Best Canadian Poetry Anthology (2015), CBC Books, and elsewhere. In 2020, Kasia received the Mona Adilman Prize for poetry related to environmental concerns. Find Kasia on twitter at @KasiaJuno