Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder’s Reviews > Beaver Hills Forever: A Métis Poetic Novella > Status Update

Might try and make out with the prof, it might be funny to watch a white-passing
Métis boy like that squirm a bit.
Guy loves to talk Land Back and she could
Show him what that actually
means. All that talk about
matriarchal ReSpOnSiBiLitY.
Like he knows shit. Baby Momma
though. She's living it.

Would rather it be an informal yet miked-up conversation with
Someone who understands the work and won't ask those bullshit mooniyaw*-
Type questions. Aunty Prof can definitely do that. Is so nervous to share
The same stage with one of the Métis poets who essentially built up a
Collective identity for everyone under the face of intense discrimination and
Assimilation. Aunty Prof is ready.
*white (Plains Cree)

And all she wants is the chance
To connect with someone.
Wonders if the prioritization of work and
Studying was really worth the loneliness that came with it.
She used
To feel that she got enough connection from the students and then
The pandemic hit and that sense of community collapsed with it.

She's been
Hitting up these HIIT running classes by the basement
Suite she rents. Never seen another NDN in one of them
But that's all right, the lady who runs it blasts remixed Weezer
And Taylor Swift and that theme song from White Lotus that
Gets everyone running their asses off, anxiety-laced drama

[HIIT = High Intensity Interval Training, NDN = Indian}

Because Dene Lady is a real one
And he'd like to play darts and listen to her sing Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" at the karaoke night on the Avenue over and over and over
Again.

... pretend that they don't
Give a fuck about their kids, exes, and current lovers. But Buddy does.
Sometimes he tells the crew that he's going off to drop a bush shit and he
Just walks into the woods and sits down, lights a cigarette, and sobs silently
For a couple of minutes before throwing his sunnies back on and coming back
To a world that's trying to suck the last drops of dinosaur blood out of the earth.