Only my great-grandmother

knew of the similarities

between yellow wheat swaying lazily,

looking up at that blue,

and swollen red slashes

after passionate whips to the back:

a strike with each imploration

Who taught your son to weave through the field?

Where is your husband?

Don’t you want it?

When my father

and his sister were children

they would trace their fingertips

across these scars,

white and risen now,

even whiter than her skin,

although it never saw the sun

ever since the sway of the boat.

“Enough of that.

Enough of borscht!” she cackled,

pulling her shirt around her heavy hips,

once home to four children,

one who is now a schizophrenic,

who sent Molotov cocktails

bouncing down the steps into the snow

after his landlord knocked for rent.

My uncle cried out, “I’ve got you now, Stalin!”

as the duplex erupted into flames.

She covered the pot,

red beetroot bubbling,

smothering that sweetness.

There is no need for nation here

on the salted streets of Montreal.

“I have chocolate pudding!” she declared.

Years later,

I am Canadian

and praised

for my thick black eyebrows.

Years later,

identity is still defined by confused faces;

how do you pronounce “Cz”?

With a force,

I tell them.

Years later,

a child’s skin melts off the bone

as he shakes his sleeping mother

begging her to wake as

the wheat fields,

trampled and sodden,

still reach for the cerulean.

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Ennie Gloom (she/her) is a poet currently residing in Tiohtià:ke. She holds a BA Hons. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Concordia University and is currently completing her MA in Creative Writing at Concordia. Her essays have been featured in Yiara Magazine and the Literature Undergraduates’ Colloquium at Concordia’s Academic Journal. Her poetry has been featured in Graphite Publications and yolk. Unhappy that she is, she cannot heave her heart into her mouth.