What You Carry

You can take what you can
carry on your back.

I wasn’t there, but he heard the cop say
You can take what you can carry

on your back.
He repeats this to me

on several occasions.
Sure, he may suffer

from an active imagination.
Sure, he lives on the street

and his voice is silenced
so he over tells. He tells me

again. He tells me
again. He tells me again

what the cop said:

You can take what you can carry on your back.

You can take what you can carry on your back.

He hears curfews, interrogations
what’s yours is mine now, relocation

to Tashme, Slocan, Hastings Park
all things not equal

gates shut, signs up
“No Japs” posted

on the outskirts of town.
Go up to Memorial Gardens

find rows of black stones
calligraphed with

symbols, numbers–
1939 1939 1939 1940

1940 1940 1940 1941 1941–
a village. His people.

See him now?

I know nothing. I know nothing.

You can take what you can
carry on your back.

You can take what you can carry
on your back.

Can you see him,
his encampment,

his overloaded cart,
him bent

with the burden
of carrying?

_{From Mute Swan, Poems for Maria Queen of the World, forthcoming from The St. Thomas Poetry Series (Toronto) in November, 2021. First Place (one of two awarded) in the Federation of BC Writers–Who is the Other? 2019 Literary Writes Poetry Contest (print, digital).}