Oh Canada
This is what happens when clumsily knotted aspirations
come undone You camp illegally in the rest area
of the Bad River reservation In the middle of the night
almost apologetic tribal cops For your own good
order you to leave You load your bicycle and pedal
in the pensive moonlight musing
how romantic this nameless Wisconsin country road
with its full moon would be if only she were here
But she is somewhere in Greece squeezing the sun
a world away from the quiet reflecting eyes
that stalk these nocturnal woods suspiciously spying
a lone bicyclist with a dying flashlight
You cross over the border of the reservation of last resort
and burrow into your sleeping bag at a fire lane
much nearer to train tracks then you know
In your sleep of snarled traffic and red lights
your dream of America implodes with Vietnam
a lost draft deferment with tin soldiers and Nixon coming
with smoke and ashes cities burning and
with once daring to have a dream
—until tremors rumble ten yards from your head
A train hauling pulpwood lumbers and squeals
over loose train track ties thumped by wheel wobbling bogies
as if they were the pedals of a church organ stomped
by a heavy footed organist And with America lost
in the dark and your love for it convulsing
with the wail of a train horn this jilting wasteland
shakes empty and aching as you straddle your bicycle
Is this the road north It might as well be raining
Les Bares lives in Richmond, Virginia. He was the winner of the 2023 Meridian Journal Short Prose Prize. He also won the 2018 Princemere Poetry Prize. His work has or will appear in New York Quarterly, The Madison Review, The Midwest Review, Cream City Review, Southword (Ireland,) Stand (England,) and other journals.