The fishing shacks have emptied
themselves of hooks, heaters, and men
and now stand propped against drifts,
creaking at the arrogance of stacked
lumber on the shore.
The molecules of night have
slowed, nearly chilled to a halt
in the locked jaws of December.
Only the sound of a truck
reaches you. His rig shudders, moans,
moves off, a beast busting the contract
of silence out of sheer loneliness.
He’ll lunge at the Trans-Canada,
skirting the Ottawa, bleeding Pembroke, Cobden,
Westmeath of their youth. He’ll grip and crank
the wide wheel, force his grill against time,
pass crags of cutaway granite looming
up in his beam, his zippo lid’s click
ticking off miles, eyes reddening as
he hauls the whole load toward
dawn’s red bloom. The rest of Ontario
sleeping like pike under ice.