Yukon Dreaming

Photo: Tagish Road by TravelingOtter; Licensed by CC-BY-SA 2.0

By Ian C Smith:

Packs against a roadwork sign, Danger, shoulder soft,
A tableau vivant: a tent, all they have inside them.
They argue, rehearsal for unimagined waning days.
He holds up their Rand McNally with his sketch,
a black-outlined big red kangaroo taped to the back,
lure for lonely drivers vectoring British Columbia
to screech to a pine-scented stop for hitch-hikers
who can’t foresee what loss the rush of years holds.
He wants to claim reaching the Klondike, or Alaska,
Amundsen planting his flag beneath heaven’s vault.
A Winnebago with Texas plates cruises by,
brakes lighting up their immediate hours,
conifer mileage, big sky, postcard outpost names.
They climb aboard into blessed cool luxury.
The woman passenger swivels her seat,
rotating 180 as if in an office movie.
Her man driving, she asks, Where y’all from?
He almost wiggles his marsupial mutely as a joke,
but realising she is serious, starts babbling
about the baleful beauty of this craving for quests,
weeks of risky responsibility, short-term relief.
His wife irrupts, reprising her summer of discontent.
He bites back, all shred of manners jettisoned.
Their benefactors’ pregnant silence pulls them up.
Chagrined, he apologises, love’s nuances complex.
Oh no, the woman protests.  That was wonderful.
Your accents.  Hearing you just the way you are.   

***

Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in, Amsterdam Quarterly, Antipodes, cordite, Poetry New Zealand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Southerly, & Two-Thirds North.  His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).  He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island, Tasmania.