It should be mother’s voice in your ear,
an audible archaeology of black Georgetown bones,
of the Moonsammy sisters peppered around oceans.

Your body needs language
of Iranian migrants, the exile poets
stripped of a place that returns the call home.

Robbed by their neighbours,
allow Tatars to speak Crimean layers of tears.
All refugees should be safe to unwrap.

To unburden, yoke weight from the words of the Innu,
the Eastern Cree,
whose home was not meant to be government housed.

It should be birthmother’s milk that strengthens this page,
French Winnipegosis, our epics of Gimli.
Hear this settler daughter of Rasmus.

from Urchin, published by In/Words Press, 2018.