Guy Birchard poem: First Distance

First Distance

Elderly man boarded the Greyhound at Kenora.
I cleared my bag from my side so he could sit.

White hair. Ojibway? He didn't speak. We didn't
speak. I was remembering paddling out of
Kenora twenty-three years before, and almost
told him about it, but didn't. He sat. I dozed.
We rode. After a time I dug out the trail-mix,
asked him if he'd want some. Cranberries. No
more words. He took a handful, a small handful.
When he brushed his palms I offered the sack
and he took a small handful. We got off the bus 

separately at a rest stop and I saw him once
unaccompanied in the crowd.

In the men's room I was faintly surprised to
hear suppressed weeping from the next stall.
Faintly. You never know, travelling like that. It
didn't sound desperate. It sounded...reticent.

I expected the old man to board the bus when
it left. He hadn't indicated he was going to, just
somehow I expected it, but he didn't show
and the driver's head-count seemed to tally so
we pulled away of course.

Many miles and hours later I found beneath the
seat beside me a plain white plastic shopping
bag with a sweater, fairly new, new enough the
nylon bit thrift stores secure price tags with
was still hanging in the label at the neck. Also
in the bag, a worn tooth-brush stogged in a box
of CREST. That's it. Anonymous. Unclaimed.
I don't know.

-Guy Birchard, from his Further Than the Blood. Pressed Wafer. Boston. 2010.
(thanks to David Rivard for introducing me to Birchard's poetry.)