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of us
    where we learned to live
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    them they never seen that
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    all they seen was that dam them
    the push of the river against them big wheels inside
    bringin’ out what they call the hydro
    but the word they use for it is power
    and them they couldn’t see that
    that was what they drowned

Fresh Horses
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    Out of the alleys rumpled kings emerge
    rolling cigarettes cadged from butts one-handed
    and hitching up their pants with the other
    wheezing, gasping, coughing
    spilling onto the street on a morning
    grey as campfire smoke — the remnants
    of last night or yesterday slung on their lips
    in drool or a snarl, shaking like a dog shitting razor blades
    for another hit, another fix, a drink, an eye-opener
    is how they call it
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    one by one the assemblage of pain
    emerges from the holes and shadows
    where they’ve hunkered in or hunkered down
    and the street becomes a loose parade
    marching back and forth between
    a smoke and the feral early-morning dealers
    slinging someone else’s product for enough to start the trip
    themselves
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    wheelmen push their carts along behind
    the dumpster divers scratching for scraps
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    you’ll eat anything when you’re starved enough
    you can even nudge the rats aside
    if there’s enough for both of you
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    broken women with wild eyes
    and skimpy dresses swiped off Army & Navy racks
    slink in and ply what remains of their charm and wiles
    for a taste, a hit, a drag, a smile even
    if it might mean twenty dollars later
    when everyone’s looped and stranger things
    have happened than a furious hump in the alley
    between friends and a good ten rock
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    passersby have learned to walk the line
    that exists two feet away from the edge of curb
    where you can’t be grabbed or sprung upon
    or where it takes a good determined lurch to reach you
    so that there’s an open lane of concrete
    between worlds like a land claim where
    they’ve learned to stick to their side of the deal
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    there’s cowboys and Indians, space cadets and hippies
    sidewalk commandos and bikers without bikes
    and someone’s college sweetheart holding hands
    with a rancher’s son who dreams of horses
    out beyond the derricks of Alberta grazing
    with only the wind for company and the sun
    shone down upon it all resplendent
    as memories when they vanish in the wash
    of this life, the tide of it beyond
    all knowing
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    he dreams of horses
    the roll of them beneath his butt and thighs
    and the land swept by in the push and punch
    of hooves and snorted breath across
    the hard pan prairie and how it feels sometimes
    to run them hard as far as they can go
    before climbing on a fresh one
    and kicking it to a gallop that pulls the foothills
    closer
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    â€œWe need fresh horses,” he mumbles to her
    but she can only squeeze his hand and squint
    into the near distance
    on a morning hard as stone

Urban Indian: Portrait 1
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    he stands at the corner
    looking through the tangle
    of one braid undone
    the nest of it falling
    against his cheek
    while he toes
    the butts at his feet
    shrugs and stoops and fingers
    one to his lips
    like a desultory kiss
    then flares the match
    and sighs
    the day into being

Urban Indian: Portrait 2
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    she sits in the window
    overlooking Pigeon Park
    and eases silken fringes
    between arthritic fingers
    the shawl her grandmother
    gave her at the Standing Buffalo powwow
    the year before she died
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    fancy dancing spinning
    kicking pretending
    the drum could push her
    floating across the air
    she touched down here
    many moons ago
    the faded outline
    of the Saskatchewan hills
    sketched in the wrinkles of her brow
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    she doesn’t dance now
    can barely walk
    but staring down at derelicts
    hookers, junkies, drunks
    and other pavement gypsies
    she sings an honour song
    so that their ancestors might
    watch over and protect them
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    the same song
    her grandmother