The researcher (2020) dreams of Shanawdithit (1828)

Shanawdithit was one of the Beothuk people, who lived in what is now called Newfoundland. The Beothuk traveled to Funk Island in the summers to gather great auks and their eggs for food.

When I sleep, you dream, turning and turning
on a soft earth.

Light drools down, blinds me. I can’t see your cheek
curve. Words rise

to your lips, tin char to a lake’s surface.
I can’t hear them. But look

at our same-sized hands. You draw my words
with them, I write

your drawings. The brittle birches clank
and squeal above.

That sound is the only thing we have both
touched. Porous

like the edge of sleep. Not like the men sawing,
sawing, who take us

in their holy hold. Who slice down trees to build
crosses, emblems

of their sliced-down lord. I am trying, but I can’t pull you
through the breach, while you—

you saved everyone: drew the shapes of their motion:
carved staffs, a cup

your father held. Here we are now, inside my translations
of your translations—

a rendition of loss, of my failure to render.
Am I fooling myself,

that through so much static, I can almost glimpse:

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