In my next life
the oblation

of birth
will name

all unnamed
selves anew. Born

into rabbit
form; a heart-

attack that
could not

kill, skews
stone

in the grip
of heels. Abreast

of churn, grit
and muscle.

A long-
dog face

frozen
in grace-less twist;

two bulging
moons that

never hit.
The snowshoe

and I,
hold ground,

acquainted.
Depress the

years inside
our chests,

breathe hard
the ground;

come ritual
and mess.

Stringy statue
on an empty

road. Took
a glance

and now,
running.

Homage to
honed rope

and tendon. Smack
of heart and

healed callus.
Bear god-

speed back
to forest.

Gabriela Halas

---

Gabriela Halas immigrated to Canada during the early 1980s with her parents and sister. She grew up in northern Alberta, lived in Alaska for seven years, and currently resides in B.C. She has published poetry in Cirque, Wild Resistance, The Louisville Review, Silk Road Review, The Hopper, and forthcoming in Rock & Sling; fiction in subTerrain and Broken Pencil; nonfiction in Pilgrimage and High Country News. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and UCROSS, and is intern for Alaska Quarterly Review. She lives and writes on traditional Ktunaxa Nation land.

Artwork: Caitlin Hackett, Always in My Heart
Website: https://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com/

31 Mar This entry was published on March 31, 2020 at 12:02 am and is filed under 41 (March 2020), Archive, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.