Walking with Ken

down Victoria, or up the hill
through crescents to Central, the powers
tilted away from speech,
each of us looking at the poem
before it is and then
rethinking why

Cranbrook Hill by the Dakelh name
and the cutbanks surround
the cupped hands of the city
taking and giving
while Ken speaks of outside, Blackwater
where the mountains are reflected
into uncertainty and systems
begin to inform the masses

I would not want to be
anywhere else but walking
with Ken, thinking about how
to stay and not betray

—if we were on a lake
it would be in a strong, well-made
canoe unlike the one
I leave in the yard unwritten