There are different words for wind. Humista: the sound of wind in pine
trees. Kohista: the sound of wind through birch. The sound is different.
One word will not replace the other.

Sylvi was a finch. Juho was a river. It is a land of birds and rivers and
wind blowing through trees.

Ida slept with a bird, a musician, and from that union came four. All of
them except Sylvi lived for awhile, smashing up boats and sleeping
under viaducts, drinking turpentine till their eyes turned yellow. Juho
Strom died from a sliver in his hand. A river with a sliver. And the smal-
lest bird died of a smallpox vaccination. Years later, when my aunt got
her vaccinations, her mother said, Don’t tell your grandmother. It will kill
her.

I looked for the river. But there isn’t one anymore. Just a sentence in a
guidebook. Does strom even mean river? I looked in a Finnish dictionary,
and there was nothing. I’m at the point now where I need to hold brown
feathers, touch a small sick bird. Dangle my feet in a poisoned river,
hear the wind blowing through birch and pine. Humista. Kohista. It is a
lullaby. Ida might’ve murmured this to Sylvi before she died. Sylvi lay in
her crib in Event Place: Vancouver. The stinking grey, the fish on the
wharf, and later, the chicken processing plant on Hastings Street.
Humista. Look up at the ceiling, the shadows on the wall. Look at the
way you hold my finger. The creaking floorboards, and your father in the
next room, playing his horn.