Gabriela Halas, Ktunaxa Nation land, Canada
The Hunter
I’m more lucky as a hunter than a wanna-
be-mother and of each animal I’ve killed
I’ve eaten the heart. The skins of burned trees
expose their hearts and only the wind is here
to eat the dust. The dust fills my lungs as we hike,
two weeks past the ultrasound. No sound
in the burn, but active animal sign, tender
shoots of fireweed ground down. Up the shoulder
of the mountain, we follow the burn as it sheds flesh,
unfurling outer bark. My feet shed flesh,
shoulder raw where the weight on my back meets soft
skin. Weight tips my balance in the depth of soft
soot, hands splayed to the nearest trunk. My feet send puffs
of soot to the air. I cannot air my grief to you.
We keep a truce of silence as we climb. The success
of our hunt reliant on silence. Above tree-line
the blackened husks below hulk like some abandoned town.
I’ve made it this far, my heart this lucky husk. The only sound
the wind that hunts the dust.
Root Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias
For Jowita Wyszomirska, after her installation: The Distance of Blue
Gabriela Halas immigrated to Canada during the early 1980s, grew up in northern Alberta, lived in Alaska for seven years, and currently resides in B.C. She has published poetry in a variety of literary journals including Cider Press Review, Inlandia, About Place Journal, Prairie Fire, december magazine, Rock & Sling, The Hopper, among others; fiction in Ruminate, The Hopper, subTerrain, Broken Pencil, and en bloc magazine; nonfiction in The Whitefish Review, Grain, Pilgrimage, High Country News, and forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review. She has received annual Best of the Net nominations in poetry (2020-2022). She lives and writes on Ktunaxa Nation land and is currently completing an MFA at UBC. www.gabrielahalas.org.