by Tricia Knoll
The Canadian border is less than an hour north.
Our countries have history. Good neighbors,
borrow and offer. Fight side by side.
I get my power through Hydro-Quebec.
Canadians come to shop, ski, hike
icefish, and mountain bike. I drive north
for museums and botanical gardens. Maple sap
runs both ways. Sugar shacks boil
here and there. I love the maple leaf flag
as much as the blue and yellow of Ukraine.
We share shock and a blood moon.
So close now
to winter’s big thaw. My eyes downcast.
As if every winter pothole
might eat me, vomit me out.
Black slush banks the highway,
a salt road gleams white.
Once fleeing to Canada seemed
like an escape-hatch. Love
your neighbor. Don’t beggar them.
Will Canadians forgive?
The border is less than an hour away.
We are so very close.
Our countries have history. Good neighbors,
borrow and offer. Fight side by side.
I get my power through Hydro-Quebec.
Canadians come to shop, ski, hike
icefish, and mountain bike. I drive north
for museums and botanical gardens. Maple sap
runs both ways. Sugar shacks boil
here and there. I love the maple leaf flag
as much as the blue and yellow of Ukraine.
We share shock and a blood moon.
So close now
to winter’s big thaw. My eyes downcast.
As if every winter pothole
might eat me, vomit me out.
Black slush banks the highway,
a salt road gleams white.
Once fleeing to Canada seemed
like an escape-hatch. Love
your neighbor. Don’t beggar them.
Will Canadians forgive?
The border is less than an hour away.
We are so very close.
Tricia Knoll lives in Vermont near the Canadian border. Her 2024 collection Wild Apples documents her downsizing and move seven years ago from Oregon to Vermont. The taste of maple is sweet; the anger of neighbors is not.
