jules

a blunt thunderstorm delivered her

              to the doorstep of her kohkum

her mother paying           hundreds of dollars              on a cab

               from winnipeg to dauphin            to dump

                           her off, but girl did she get rowdy

              a flying fist       &             sharper tongue.

used to fight with her haida uncle

              &         swear in cree,

                          heard them talk rude

                          &            ran them down the street

              until a train took a limb

                          until a storm took her four.

              until more than enough was never good enough.

              my mother, a child in the storm,

              a storm begetting storm

              a weather pattern unmatched

              a sideways water

              a means of knowing

              all lightning         &          swears

              she, the reasoning for more

              a terrible knowing

              a prairie storm

              caught in grey,

                          swirling from frances to cordova

auntie says mark would say "i'm not going out with you like that"

              and mother would say "stay home then"

when she tells me i dress like her, 

a beautiful stubborn           &           how much she thinks jules

              would adore me, love who i became,

                           the LOUDEST girl in the room

an auntie's laugh at five years old

              always changing my clothes just like her

auntie keeps calling me jules

              keeps saying sorry

keeps saying i look like jules

              keeps saying sorry

keeps laughing 

              "ha ha jules— 

                           i mean— 

                                         sorry—"

i tell auntie:

              "i feel her in the storms y'know,

the before weather and the during and the after

              when the wind jolts my stomach

like just before the first bump on a roller coaster

              i can see her in the falling leaves

on commercial drive

              on the number twenty bus

              swearing outside of dressew

and bumming a smoke on hastings—

              i see her everywhere"

she says: "in the mirror too i hope"