Usually, the young scope as part of an ambush,
mom somewhere nearby. They stride at the game,
assessing the stands, looking like they're not  
gauging if they are seen—the opposite of hunting,
more a feeling out of open spaces. Tonight,
she's after a field boy, so she lies in wait. A what?
A boy who seizes the field at recess. Apparently
popular. My wife & I don't mind. We can see her,
pawing at the cookies at the kids’ table.
 
He's all skin & bones, a decent thirteen, safely
following after his mother. So, I drive her home,
assuming even tigresses must learn to lose—
but, in the savannah of the living room, I’m caught
& dragged down by her extended claws, why
didn’t I know she was about to talk to him?
So, goodbye den, & back to the safari
to watch from the tall grass of the kitchen.
There’s a power she hasn’t decided to call on yet.
I don’t want to see this. I hope he gets away.
                        

Transparent as the steps above
the fort of Ville Marie, whose sign apprises
us the colonists’ ships mastered the rapids
to land on uncultivated shores.
 
Our eyes descend to the sundial & fire-pit,
glassed palisades—rusty triggers testament
to one perspective. The dream of converting
the Indigenous to Christianity. Of course, 

the red courage is here in the defeated
statues; native austerity confirms
the victors’ bravery.  We walk beneath
the city & the sewer’s peaceful centuries 

of stone smoothed by cobalt lights 
curling floor to ceiling. After a fugue,  
I find my wife by the Hurons’ one wall—
our girls glance, choose the short film
 
on De Maisonneuve, Montreal’s founder,
who planted a small cross in the thaw 
as a promise. If God stayed the flood,
he would climb the mountain behind the village, 

once the Iroquois’ home & hunting grounds,
& there, raise a cross to the heights. The sun 
was sacrament when the dry trees fell, 
& the nails drove home His Mercy.