St Lambert

I’m 7, sister, 9 and cousin, 8

We ride bikes

as far as the corner store

Buy juicy fruit and soda

on the streets of St Lambert

on hot September afternoons

From Granny’s house,

kissing the Swedish grandpa we call Fa-Fa

because he lives so far away

We pass the kite park

Sky full of colourful flyers

And the old church

which my mother says is haunted

and the cemetery,

holding our breath as we pedal by

But on the spiked black gate

With its rusted-over shine

A squirrel is impaled

Speared straight through the belly

Eyes wide

in a tableau of pain

On the cemetery side

another squirrel

looks up doubtfully

waiting for the other to come down

Sister tells me not to touch it

but I scoop the dead up, guts and all, and lay it down

The other scurries off nervously,

the scent of death reaching its nose,

eyeing far off acorns

We bike home

more aware of our mortality,

my hand sticky with blood