after the flood
they will find
something unexpected
glimpsed
through ripples
down where silt settles
a clear current slashes
the transcanada’s jugular
and something sparkles
from a crack in drowned concrete
reborn riverbed
here, good omens lay
and what they once lost
resurfaces
knees to bank, they beckon:
pass abolition, cupped and wet
between a generosity of palms
open-shelled to a future
where:
each grain of gold harvested
from the warmth of these wounds
is transubstantial: a table is set
a feast of johnnycakes warm as suns demonstrates
how gold now finds itself
a homonym in sustenance
a wealth hymnal in its devotion
to life without property
they have sung to this
they sing to it whenever
old shining standards
reveal themselves washed out, eroded,
toast
toast
to plenty
to depths
to darkness
to what sleeps in their open arms
to what wakes when it needs to be fed
and is
fed.
Trynne Delaney is a writer currently based in Tiohtià:ke. Their writing consists mostly of musings about how we got here, where we are, who “we” encompasses, and how to care in a violent world and exist in spaces that are hostile to multiplicity. Read more of her writing in carte blanche and GUTS magazine. More: trynnedelaney.com