Trademark Translation

“Dad,” I ask,

enthralled by the irony of our identity,

“How would you say, ‘My wife is Métis,’ in Cree?”

Without hesitation, with skin

as pale as mine, Dad looks straight into my eyes,

the colour of the North Saskatchewan sky,

says with the ease and contraction of a fluent speaker,

“nit’skwêm ap’sis nêhiyaw.”

He knows I understand, knows Mom doesn’t.

Then despite hair white and downy as a whisper,

twenty-one, a young man again,

he ducks his head and turns toward Mom, his eyes

the colour of the aspen parkland in autumn,

hers the colour of warm Saskatchewan loam.

He looks into them to translate with his trademark grin,

“My woman is a little bit Cree.”