If fate were canada post

By Jordan Redekop-Jones

Dear star,
 
You send your soft billed bird 
beak sealed with rain and a postage stamp
 
something with the canadian rockies  
the unsweetened version of the maple leaf
 
                     you say
I miss you    you ask   how has sobriety been?
 
I know the answer. Freedom traces waves, lays its lavender branch
on my collarbone before flitting away into the night.
 
Athena’s owl, wide eyed sorcerer sings to me
pursed lipped storm of wisdom, holding the mark of 365 days.
 
I will not
wish on the loose ends of dust, goldilocks hair crumbs,
Rumpelstiltskin’s wheel of fortune
 
Courage to stay stings.
This journey drinks a dry typhoon of loneliness
This body ebbs with the dream of eternal peace.
 
Tell me a line to stave off my insomnia
mother willow’s words, piyêsîsak, a pastel drawing of the moon
 
Make me cry in heart song, in the morning rise of birds.
 
My body sings with them   flies south   sticks her head out
to see the hummingbird balanced on a finger, aching with the tree.
 
This winter is a swan scraping the star bath of the sky
heavy as blooming pupil
 
This winter braves its tear inside, burrowed in the welt of angel blossom.

---

The great canadian silence

By Jordan Redekop-Jones

Is white romance, Simon and Garfunkel’s shadow poem
finger reached out for closure   palm extended
vulnerable lifeline
 
Can you see the face of thousands, whispering?
pale lips, frozen bark
shivering stars knit in every flag
 
Can you see the dancers, fluttering?
every colour spread in tassels
tanned deer hide, beads glittering
 
on her feet, ancestors’ wealth dripping
from her ears.
 
(Canada)
 
song swallowed by
white rapids. half note, wildly
undone. A land where regalia
 
is forced to close lips, kimono
a breached butterfly clipped.
sari that last adorned a grandmother
 
before she left the british ship.
 
Will your pride turn away?
Will your lips bruise in this weather?
Will cloth soar on heavy wings?
 
The unceded will leap.
Flora and Fauna shrug off
their temporary tattoos
 
155 years, founded
lacquer and gelatin will burn.
Colonial candle wax
 
drips from founders’ faces
the virgin mary’s lonely tear
scars, drips into a silent red river.
 
The silence is searching,
burying shame, open and dancing.
The dancing is alive and awake.
 
We are not background to
your white romance.
Can’t you see us building a castle
in your cold (Canadian) air?

---

fractions of a canadian sun

By Jordan Redekop-Jones

            Whatdidyousurvive?
he asked
as if i were a spectacle
blown up by the air of his warm breath
 
*
 
i survived a photon massacre
 
a kaleidoscope of colours, i could never own
my baby teeth left floating, sallowed grains of
jasmine rice, lotus petals in muddy water
 
**
 
i scoured my blood
 
watched the great canadian tongue
roll in waves on its iron flag
spitting my frail numbers, imitation gems
on crusted grass.
 
*
 
i bated
i wrestled
i fasted
under my sunken native sun
 
**
 
i sullied hope
 
the white-cast dream
shell scraps biting soft skin
an ugly prayer on mosaic tiles
sinking to the salted basement floor
 
*
 
               whatdidyousurvive?
echoed in the pale pink belly
of a conch
               whatdidyousurvive?

---

Jordan Redekop-Jones is a mixed-Indigenous writer from Vancouver BC. She is an English student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where she was the recent winner of the JoAnne Ward Creative Writing Award. As well, she has work in Canthius and Pinhole Poetry. Growing up, Jordan spent most of her time travelling the world, which she hopes to write more about one day. Currently, she lives in Vancouver BC with her family and her mini goldendoodle India.

Instagram: j.r.jones__