From The Alphabet Game: A bpNichol Reader, published by Coach House Books in 2007; originally in Craft Dinner (Aya Press) and reprinted with permission from the estate of bpNichol.

FRIDAY

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

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SATURDAY

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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 

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   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

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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

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                 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

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