The plot so far

SELINA BOAN

evidence everywhere / a house built over a home / a name / what is / the history of a word / thick rimmed fence / coins settled in a drawer for food / eat half a lemon and you’ll feel fine / I promise

in the dictionary / the cree word mahtakoskacikew / means s/he settles or lays on top of everything // I’ll tell you a story / I stained my hands as a kid in the backyard where I grew / peeling walnut shells open / trying to find the part I could eat

at sixteen / I hitched up the green water tower / settled at the top for a better view / dreamt mother wasn’t young / driving a VW van cushioned with gas / hands on the wheel in front of a hill wearing fire / she was just so innocent / my birth father told me in the car / and I wanted to believe

from the ground up / growing / I never learned the hul’q’umi’num name for the place I lived till I was gone/ once slipped myself into the bay / cracked my feet on dock barnacles and bled / I wanted so many ways / to settle in private / my mother’s heart / a plot / a plan made in secret / a piece of land we wanted to call our own but was / not ours to name