Poems

Preludes

I

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Praying Herd: For Safe Journey

Draw a line through our scattered bodies. The pattern of fallen calves in this meadow will mirror

the constellation above. Look up. We whip our tails to a silent song:

more treaty lines

1790 → treaty 2, district of Hesse (step into wolf)

province of quebec

“We do herby certify that the following goods were delivered to the

several Nations”

Homeworld

this is the growing of things birthing of skin

and bone stem     and leaf     this is planet

earth beneath snowlight and desert sand

Sorting through Documents at Dawn

three crosses appear

on the tv screen

following a

sweep of my hair

that felt like your hand

maybe i dreamt it

but i so badly

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

Last Visit

Now I set out across a minefield,

space having taken all I owned, I’m starting over

from a point where every pebble may explode

beneath my shoe and the flowers blaze up

behind my body as I gasp for air,

Sharing

Nouf is proof God does not want me to die     a horse-girl with horse-hair who loves even the flies will not swat them    carries them outside with a glass-and-paper trap she brims with glee …

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

Blank Sonnet

      The air smells of rhubarb, occasional

Roses, or first birth of blossoms, a fresh,

Undulant hurt, so body snaps…

Shots Rang Out on My Street Today

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Shots rang out on my street today

Three Black yoots lay dead

shot inna dem head

Vancouver Lights

About me the night        moonless           wimples the mountains

wraps ocean      land    …

The Powwow at the End of the World

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam   

School for the Deaf

You gasp, awakened by

a bucket of cold water.

A gauzy autumn morning. A drained sunrise.

You shiver, strain to see the house

parent’s fingers whipping & flicking in

Tide

Would I have seen her?

The tide tugging her gently past

the Comfort Inn; houses, tall and gabled,

4 Marked by Claws and Cloudburst...

The calendar marred with birds and you are kik-kik-kik-kicking all the way into June. 

180 days scratched with black X’s and crow’s feet: bird-of-two minds (goodandevil 

   …

A Glass Tube Ecstasy

a glass tube

for my leg       says Hugo Ball

my hat a cylinder

Insomnia

Thin are the night-skirts left behind

By daybreak hours that onward creep,

And thin, alas! the shred of sleep

#BLESSED

Sunbeams aren’t something I notice.

Mostly it’s my own breasts, bobbing with effort

like I’m a man writing the story of a woman

and the way her nipples strain politely

The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

Brother

Your wedding day was a hurricane; your bride in red was like a kiss on

on the dry prairie dirt. You actually never told me the story of how it went.

The wedding, I mean. In fact, you never told me about how you chose

the second time

i ask mama

about residential school

she says no

i ask her again

she says no

the third time

i stop listen

to her silence

Hall of Mirrors

To Kristin Lems

We miss something now

as we think about it

Kome’s Story

for auntie nagasaki

it's the same story

told again & again

the modulations

& the machinations

the maudlin

January, 1795

Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing,

Lords in ermine, beggars freezing;

Titled gluttons dainties carving,

Wet Market

From youth I was taught that fresh meant alive

until the moment you buy it                                My mother

Clouds

                                     My father’s green Pontiac

An Innocent Little Girl

The little girl is innocent

they’ve put henna on her hands

they’ve plaited her hair beautifully

they’ve put kohl round her eyes

they’ve dyed her eyebrows

“Breathe dust…”

Breathe dust like you breathe wind so strong in your face

little grains of dirt which pock around the cheeks peddling

against a dust-storm…

dont worry yr hair

              dont worry yr eyes

         dont worry yr brain man th snow is

Verso 3.1

At first there's no lake in the city, at first there are only

elevators, at first there are only constricting office desks;

there are small apartments and hamburger joints and

Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude;

From: Incantation: Memory of Water

Tonight, a strand of my great-grandmother’s hair

sashes an amber beer bottle discarded by a tourist.

A white thread of my grandmother’s baptismal robe

is a bangle on a wrist of kelp

Arnauqatikka

                                                                 …

niya

At Melville’s Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge

The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath

An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,

Wind, Water, Stone

for Roger Caillois

Water hollows stone,

wind scatters water,

stone stops the wind.

Water, wind, stone.

Wind carves stone,

Revenge

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,

And gaze upon her smile;

Seem as you drank the very air

Eight

The trick to building houses was making sure 

they didn’t taste good. The ocean’s culinary taste 

was growing more sophisticated and occasionally