Entre Rive and Shore
Québécois/Acadian, poet/translator, French/English speaking Dominique Bernier-Cormier was led to believe his ancestor Pierrot Cormier donned a dress to escape prison the night before the Acadian Deportation, a British lowlight of the mid-1700s in North America. Ever mindful of his forward-slashed existence, Bernier-Cormier lives, writes, and teaches in Vancouver.
Self-Portrait As Pythia, the Oracle at Delphi
At night, the world opens its jaws for me
and sings a song of sulphur.
On the seventh day of each month, they come at dawn, walking up the white slope.
Their future like an itch they scratch, festering.
Kings, soldiers, merchants, carrying constellations of coins.
Those who pluck what they want from the sky,
the night their orchard.
More, always wanting more.
They come to me, up the white slope at dawn,
on the seventh day.
Sometimes, I am a laurel and speak to them
through the rustling of my leaves.
Today, I sit on the tripod, its golden legs stretched
over a split in the rock.
Cloaked in smoke, a purple cloth across my face.
They come to me because I speak the language of gods,
because Apollo and I share a tongue.
To translate, I tell them, is to kiss through a veil.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
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