“R.C.M.P. FILE #10349 (SONNET FOR A GRANDMOTHER)” by Kevin Irie
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “R.C.M.P. FILE #10349 (SONNET FOR A GRANDMOTHER)” by Kevin Irie.
R.C.M.P. FILE #10349 (SONNET FOR A GRANDMOTHER)
By Kevin Irie
The birthdate typed on your Internment File
differs from the date we had cut
in your death stone. After a while
we gave up guessing. You never denied, but
the year was uncertain. Picture bride
sailing from Japan. Hiroshima. A minor, teen?
Traced back to Vancouver, we tried
to place you. Now government records have been
opened like salmon. Youโre in there
like fish bones stuck in a throat.
Case numbers twist into hooks, barbs, bare
fishing lines where enemy aliens float,
a catch wrapped in paper. Popoff: your stated
(after uprooting) address. Your capture stamped and dated.
Copyright ยฉ Kevin Irie
Previously published in Bookworm No. 47, June 2024.
Kevin Irie is a Japanese Canadian poet from Toronto. In 2024, he won Grain Magazineโs poetry contest, second prize in Prairie Fireโs poetry contest, third prize in The New Quarterlyโs poetry contest and honourable mention in Grainโs experimental writing contest. He is in The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025) and Best Canadian Poetry 2026 (Biblioasis, 2025). His next book is Evacuations (University of Alberta Press 2026).
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