Sonnet L’Abbe’s A Strange Relief is forthcoming from McClelland and Stewart ______ Books available from www.chapters.ca A Strange Relief ______ For more Poets

Sonnet L’Abbe Bushparty, Great Slave Lake Caught out in a north widening, with the wind, between two skins of earth and dark sky, everyone is drunk, there is no way home except the swaying back of a pick up, cold road a black brushstroke the truck smudges with accidental brakes, marks of tire treads. Now and then through hair blown in your eyes, through swerving bodies breaths, sour clouds of beer and sick, the sky leans in to kiss your way, wears your path home in pink northern light, a trace of lipstick on its starred black cheek.