Nearly too late for another road trip, nearly too late
for everything it seems, rain sluicing through fog over
Box Canyon, the half-life of family behind us, no one is
who they think they are, you are not a beautiful man, you
are a boy transparent & terrible as light, while I am no
longer young as, in the truck, loaded down with music &
dreams & thwarted love, we leave what we were born for,
the graffiti and fire of the stage, pass Cache Creek, scream
through Sangudo, keeping pace with the Wiggle Chips truck
just as far as the borders of autumn.
Silence. The whole way
home. Guess we've spoken summer;
all its melting words.
Catherine Owen is the author of six collections of poetry, the most recent being Frenzy from Anvil Press in Vancouver, BC. Her work has been translated into three languages, published in five countries and nominated for a range of honours including the BC Book Prize and the Air Canada/CBC award. These poems are from a manuscript called Quadrants.
