Richard Dubois
traduction du poème de Patrice Desbiens.)

I remember
A station wagon cutting through the northern night
like a bowie knife carving up the prey
We are all there
My mother and sister her husband and children
All there sitting in the car
Johnny B. Good Leblanc driving, the glimmering dash like a haze on his face
I alone do not sleep. The car hums on through an ocean of battered green
My sister sleeps in the front seat, the black night breathing in and out her open mouth
The night is long and smooth
long and smooth
long and smooth is the night…
Suddenly, something rips it up
Just ahead, something has leaped forward
The windshield - a cinemascope screen
Twentieth Century Fox and Gulf Western flashing headlights at the animal, the animal the Moose - right in the middle of the road
Stopped
Staring
Its fate rolling head on at 60 miles an hour
Its eyes its eyes its eyes
Oh my god - down to the last second
A muffled crash – steel and flesh, in and out
My sister yelling – a long, wild, killing yell
As if the dying soul of the Moose had flown away through her…
And then
At last
Silence
I remember.
Silence within silence, all over,
From Timmins to Toronto

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