It seems like enough. I can survive if I keep This sleep schedule as it has been constructed For me. But if it seems my reflexes are delayed,
Or if I sway when I walk, or weep or do not weep, Please don’t worry. I’m not under destruction.
My grief has cast me in a lethargic cabaret.
So pay the cover charge and take your seat.
This mourning has become a relentless production And I’ve got seventy-eight roles to play.
84.
Assimilation
DRIVING IN THE Cascade foothills, I stop for the deer that had already stopped for me.
Growing up on the reservation, by choice and desperation, we ate almost every animal that walked, swam, or flew.
In my rez youth, I would have seen that roadside deer and thought, “Food.”
In my urban adulthood, I saw that deer and talked to him. I rolled down my window and said, “You are way too tame, Mr. Four Point. Somebody is gonna shoot your ass.”
85.
Litmus Test
AFTER READING MY stories and poems, people often ask me, “Why did your father drink so much?”
But some strangers, the ones who know the most about pain, hear my father’s tragic story, and they ask, “Damn, why didn’t he drink more?”
86.
Standardized
Achievement
I wonder if my mother is at rest
Or if she’s laughing at her bequest: A rigorous seventy-eight-question test
That quantifies our devotion & grief.
This test will be proctored by a machine That thinks “slight misdeed” & “fucking stampede
Of maternal rage-horses” are synonyms.
Or maybe everyone sits for this quiz And writes long essays about phantom limbs
And how we children ache in that place— Now sterilized & amputated—
Where our good and bad mothers graced.
87.
Everything You Need to Know About Being Indigenous in America
IN AUGUST 2015, as a huge forest fire burned on my reservation, as it burned within feet of the abandoned uranium mine, the United States government sent a representative to conduct a town hall to address the growing concerns and fears.
My sister texted me the play-by-play of the meeting.
“OMG!” she texted. “The government guy just said the USA doesn’t believe the forest fire presents a serious danger to the Spokane Indian community, even if the fire burns right through the uranium mine.”
88.
Fire
IN AUGUST 2015, a forest fire burned nearly forty thousand acres on my reservation in eastern Washington State. Over three hundred miles away, in Seattle, I was able to log on to a U.S. Forest Service website and watch satellite images of that growing fire. Updated regularly, the images were snapshots of destruction. I was afraid for my siblings living only a few miles from the southern edge of the blaze.
“We’ve been ordered to prepare for evacuation,” my sister texted me. “We’ve loaded up the two cars with the most important stuff.”
“What stuff?” I texted back.
“All the photo albums,” she texted. “And all the beaded stuff. And quilts. And the jewelry. And everybody’s powwow regalia. And the Indian paintings.”
“Good,” I texted back. It had been only a few weeks since our mother died—since grief had started a flash fire in our bones—and now my brothers and sisters were facing another fire, which threatened to burn everything else.
“Can you see the fire?” I texted my sister.
“We can see huge smoke clouds on the horizon,” she texted. “The sky and the smoke are glowing orange.”
“Reflecting the fire probably,” I texted.
“Yes,” she texted. “It is scary and beautiful.”
Grief is scary and beautiful, too, I thought, but did not text. I wondered if you can look at smoke clouds and see objects and animals like you can do with regular clouds floating in the sky. I wondered, if I had been standing beside my sister, if I would have seen our late mother’s face in the smoke.
Yes, yes, yes, I would have forced myself to see her in the smoke. I would have invented her face. And thinking of my mother’s face made me think of the paintings of Indian faces hanging on the walls of my childhood home.
“The paintings you put in the car?” I texted my sister. “You mean the ones Dad bought?”
“Yes,” my sister texted.
I laughed. My father’s paintings were cheap shopping-mall art that depicted wise Indians in eagle-feather headdresses floating majestically over golden desert landscapes. My sisters had packed those corny paintings in their cars along with family and tribal heirlooms that would fit beautifully in any Native American museum.
l laughed at the dichotomy between Indian art and Indian kitsch. And then I laughed at us, the Indians, who were equally in love with that same art and kitsch.
I laughed because I would have saved those silly paintings, too.
“Is the air okay?” I texted.
“It hurts a little to breathe,” my sister texted back. “But we’re okay.”
Jesus, I thought, is there a better and more succinct definition of grief than It hurts a little to breathe, but we’re okay?
“If you have to evacuate, where will you stay?” I texted.
“They have shelters in Reardan and Airway Heights,” my sister texted back.
“No,” I texted. “Just call me if they make you evacuate and I’ll get you hotel rooms with kitchens.”
“Okay,” she texted. “Thank you.”
Over the years, I’d often had to give money to my parents and siblings to save them from their own bad decisions. And I’d often been angry about my family’s irresponsibility and would then feel guilty for harshly judging my loved ones. After all, wasn’t I the fucking progressive indigenous leftist who believed that every American should be guaranteed a minimum basic income? If I didn’t happily help provide for at least some of my siblings’ basic needs, then didn’t that make me a bad liberal and worse Indian? But, hey, I felt no conflict in offering to shelter my siblings (and the good and bad Indian art) in a clean and decent hotel if they had to evacuate our reservation. Their lives were on fire! Hell, sometimes it feels like the whole country is on fire. Like a constant conflagration is burning too close to all poor people. Shouldn’t rich-ass America be taking care of everybody?
“How many people are fighting the fire?” I texted my sister.
“About two hundred Spokane Indians,” she texted. “And maybe one hundred Indians from other reservations.”
“Is the government sending in their firefighters?”
“They said they’re low on resources. Low on men and equipment. They don’t know when they’ll be able to send more help.”