Mike Puican

Mars flares above a frozen lake.    
A jet's trail lines the sky like a closed eye.      
A young boy straightens thick, fat fingers
to show what he is to become: five.
Another in a bright yellow jacket walks
across the ice, someone calls him back
from beyond the breakwater . . .

This evening my father appears
in the melting snow of a cornfield. I see him
now blooming from my face. A red fox      
crosses the mud; a crack bursts from the ice.
Something puts its hands over my ears and says,
I am late May burning through Manitoba.
I am a bonfire blazing in the cold fog. Something
puts its hands over my ears and says, Listen . . .