jules

a blunt thunderstorm delivered her

        to the doorstep of her kookhum

her mother paying        hundreds of dollars               on a cab

        form 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,

                  hear 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 fraces 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 rollercoaster

        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"