Poetry by Ken Cathers

              ​kelly bell photography CC




kiefer

1

you were already
back on the street

another 12 step
unfinished

another week in rehab
wasted.

couldn’t figure
how you messaged
from the Eastside

some halfway house laptop
one last yell back
for those who still cared.

talked about 
a new friend
propped on a park bench

sat down with him
the bottle
brown paper bag

familiar, not quite 30, 
bent over in the sunlight
                already dead




kiefer

2

tell me about
that time you caught
those shimmering Nass coho

               off the bridge in 
               Kincolith

too big to carry
rolled them home
in a wheel barrow 

calling out
on the dirt streets
to come see.

just once, wanting
something
to be proud of




kiefer

3

you were the real
Eastside Warrior

called out
the rich boys

driving down
to beat up
the Hasting Street bums

would dance 
in their headlights 
like crazy

ready to go

that fierce light
shining

fists clenched
call me INDIAN!

 no reason left
 to back down now




kiefer

4

how your daughters
loved you

the way you fit
so easily
              into their lives

built a playground
of laughter
              around them

how unprepared
you were
for any of it

afraid it was
too delicate
               to last

did not believe
you would shatter
everything
                by leaving




kiefer

5

there is a photograph.
you and two cousins,
age thirteen, winning

the fishing derby
in Rupert, casting 
from the dock

made the front page.
those open, 
unsuspecting faces

not even sure
they bothered
with your names.

and now the cousins
already gone
fentanyl dead boys

a chance memory
of fishing, that
perfect shimmer of

unnamed statistics.
how you felt
the numbers
                closing in

paralysed, unable
to get out
of the way




kiefer

6

a curse on paramedics
street workers
reformed junkies

we roll the dice
and take our chances
               our call

last night, another
unwanted narcan shot
               ruined everything

just when it was
so close
I could almost taste

              what it was
              to be free




kiefer

7

lots of static
bad reception
the song broken up

incoming, white noise
on a late night call.

think back, was there
a time before 
it was too late

what  might have been
a wrong number,
one last whispered
prayer
                for help




kiefer

8

why did they make
a ceremony
out of burning your clothes?

so you could never
return? so no one else
could ever pretend to be you?

or to cover you
for the next go round
tattered rags of smoke
                 a shirt of fire?

burn some blankets too
burn this merciless hunger

this whole godforsaken
street, burn down the sorrow
the shadow of everything 
                 gone wrong

til there is only
this perfect  sliver of sun 
left
                 to keep you warm




kiefer

9

migrating home

three lines slack
in deep water

a place where everything
             returns

lost boys
fishing 
              in the light
​

Ken Cathers as a  B.A. from the University of Victoria and a M.A. from York University in Toronto. He has been published in numerous periodicals, anthologies as well as seven  books of poetry,  most recently
Letters From the Old Country with Ekstasis Press. His work has appeared in publications in Canada, the United States, Australia, Ireland  and Africa. He lives on Vancouver Island with his family in a small colony of trees.

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