Their house was on a dirt road
off the highway,
the children whose father sold
logs to my father.
There was no paint on those weathered boards.
The floors were bare.
Those eight children,
leaned across the supper table
to stare at me.
There was no difference
between breath and breathe.
They breathed
quick, smudged breaths
like mushrooms.
The lamp gulped for life
in a world without light
switches, without the click,
click of baseboard heat.
If they had to, I knew they could
lure a salmon into an open net,
set leg traps, wire snares,
skin a caribou down to its meat.
