Ode to Rita Joe  (companion piece to the persona poem)

I saw her everyday

for months

sleeping in the doorway

ten steps from the

Army and Navy

on East Hastings –

the DTES

Downtown

East

Side –

death warrant,

execution certificate for

anyone living there –

especially

women and girls.

 

The first time I approached her

to

hand her a five

she

screamed at me:

WHAT THE FUCK YOU LOOKIN’ AT?!

I looked at my feet

and

said I was sorry,

I

just wanted to

help her out.

 

She had a great smile,

in spite of the

broken,

blackened

teeth and

eventually

showed it to me more

often than she yelled at me.

 

People would spit at her,

you know,

and once, even

a car load of

frat assholes from

UBC

threw a Gatorade bottle

of piss at her.

She hissed

and spat

like an alley cat

but

her eyes

gave her soul away –

you could read

every chapter

and verse

of the rape

and the abuse –

her eyes

made her look dead

inside.

 

But,

one night,

in my truck –

she was high,

I was drunk –

she told me how

she wanted to fly.

 

She hated the mountains,

said they reminded her of jail –

and she “fucking hated jail.”

She wanted to be

on the Prairie to see

the sunset

on all the horizons.

 

But it happened –

as it always happens –

on the DTES:

the

Downtown

East

Side –

I walked past her stoop

every day,

for weeks,

but she was no where to be seen.

 

I asked around,

at the places she’d

haunt

but no one had

seen her for weeks.

 

It’s been nearly a year

and I haven’t

seen her –

or heard

where she’s at.

 

I’d like to think

that

she’s on the

red path

back to the

endless sunsets.

(c) R. L. Elke 2016