(In the dream) my mother wasn’t angry and she made a sort
of breakfast out of photographs. I went out through the window
and set my toes to the slope of the roof. The sound of frying
felt at any rate neutral. In the (dream) three bears were accompanied
by a fourth of greater ferocity. In the dream (I) had never known
about shoes. My feet could read and found ways of winding up earth
into sensible chunks, or dollops. No lump could truly be called
identical. The sound of frying was indicative of compression.
A photograph, already flat, flips easily upon the application
of a spatula. My (mother) kept her back turned. To ensure safety,
I used all my senses except for sight.

DAWN MACDONALD lives in Canada’s Yukon Territory, where she grew up without electricity or running water. She won the 2025 Canadian First Book Prize for her poetry collection Northerny (University of Alberta Press).