Francesca Forrest’s Reviews > A Family of Dreamers > Status Update

from "chickadee"

one being's apocalypse is another's
good morning.

aren't we all just the representations
of many beginnings and endings?

From "mclean drive,"

we are only loved
the way spring loves
fres flowers.

even in endings,
there is renewal.

i break open myself,
to form new rivers.

some people burn like wildfires
fast and bright,
destroying everything in their path.

yet in their wake
wildfires make room
for new life.

in my dreams
i watch fireweed grow out of burnt tree trunks
watch my friends turn beautiful
as the ash settles

My see-through skin
soaks up the sun,
and i am made anew. (from "Wildfire")

the poem "pahkwêsikan" is a two-page spread, pp 68–69, and it was reading it that got me to buy the book. But it's not a good poem to quote; you need to read it in its entirety :-)

I'm loving this collection.

from "aunty, how do you say unrequited in our language?"

you missed the lesson
about the impossibility of
loving someone until they love
you the way you want them to

From "nothing is ever simple"
neither of us were into each other
but we were into
not being alone
and the affirmation of kissing.

emptiness is a space
two people
can fill.

From "kiyâm"

my memories will exist in my daughters'
dreams and their daughters' dreams and their
daughters' dreams.
just like my mothers' exist in mine.

From "counting teeth"

i have tangled my fingers
in the hair of others
searching for signs of life.

...

i miss the sound of snow
falling on snow.

From "give 'em hell, iskwew"

in kokum's purse she has the same shade of red
lipstick that mom wears
she applies a heavy layer
and kisses a tissue to blot
places it back into her bag.

red lips left like a fingerprint.

Lori, i think kokum has room
in her purse for all of us.