The Long Weekend of Louis Riel

louis riel liked back bacon & eggs easy
over   nothing’s as easy as it seems
tho   when the waitress cracked the eggs
open louis came to his guns blazing   like
dissolution like the fingers of his hand coming
apart as he squeezed the trigger
        this made breakfast the most
difficult meal of the day   lunch was simpler
   two poached eggs & toast with a mug
of coffee   he never ate supper never ate
after four in the afternoon spent his time planning
freedom the triumph of the metis over the
whiteman

saturday

louis felt depressed   when he got up he sat
down & wrote a letter to the english   there
was no use waiting for a reply

  it came   hey gabriel look at this
shouted louis a letter from those crazy english   
they both laughed & went off to have
breakfast

            that morning there
was no bacon to fry   its those damn
englishers said gabriel those damn whitemen
theyre sitting up in all night diners staging a
food blockade

   louis was watching the waitress’s hands as
she flipped the pancakes spun the pizza dough
kneaded the rising bread & didnt hear him
   its as canadian as genocide thot gabriel

sunday

the white boys were hanging around the local
bar feeling guilty looking for someone to put it
on   man its the blacks said billie its what
weve done to the blacks   hell said george
what about the japanese   but johnny said
naw its what weve done to the indians

                outside in the
rain louis was dying   its always these damn
white boys writing my story these same stupid
fuckers that put me down try to make a myth
out of me   they sit at counters scribbling
their plays on napkins their poems on their
sleeves & never see me

             hell said george its
the perfect image the perfect metaphor   he’s
a symbol said johnny   but he’s dead thot
billie but didn’t say it out loud   theyre crazy
these white boys said louis riel

monday

they killed louis riel & by monday they were
feeling guilty

maybe we shouldn’t have done it said the mounties
as they sat down to breakfast    louis rolled
over in his grave & sighed    its not enough
they take your life away with a gun they have to
take it away with their pens    in the distance
he could hear the writers scratching louder &
louder    I’m getting sick of being dished up
again & again like so many slabs of back
bacon he said    i don’t think we should’ve
done it said the mounties again reaching for the
toast & marmalade    louis clawed his way
thru the rotting wood of his coffin & struggled up
thru the damp clay onto the ground    they
can write down all they want now he said they’ll
never find me    the mounties were eating
with their mouths open & couldn’t hear him
louis dusted the dirt off his rotting flesh & began walking

when he came to gabriel’s grave he tapped on the
tombstone & said come on gabriel its time we
were leaving & the two of them walked off into
the sunset like a kodachrome postcard from the
hudson bay