When this first stanza arrived in my head, I was sitting next to my wife, watching a married couple reenacting an argument. Onstage, the woman recounted how she, as an eight-year-old, contracted polio from a bad sugar-cube immunization. She speculated that she was one of only three people in the United States who caught polio from inoculate because her immune system was already burned out from the case of mumps that her physician father didn’t care to notice. “My father was a great healer,” she said. “For everybody except his own children.” At that very moment, I thought of my late mother as a wolf, and of her immense and intimidating and feral power, and then I disassociated and launched into my flight across the universe—
My mother, pack-hungry, lopes Through the tall wild grass In search of other wolves
And other mothers—
So, yes, I did end up writing a second stanza about my mother as a wolf, even after that first stanza disassociated me. But here’s the crazy thing: After the woman onstage talked about her polio—and after I’d disassociated, fallen asleep for a few minutes sitting in my chair, and was awakened by audience applause—I turned to my wife and smiled. I was going to joke about falling asleep, but my wife said, “Why’d you leave?” I was confused. “I’ve been sitting here the whole time,” I said. “But you got up and left,” my wife said. “You bumped my shoulder and then you were gone. And I didn’t even realize you’d come back until you smiled at me.” I laughed and told her about my flight through the universe and quick nap, and she said, “Childhood trauma can give you superpowers, right?”
My mother stalks a small pack of sheep.
She knows these animals are protected By humans with rifles—with metal and fire.
My mother doesn’t have a word for “rifle,”
But she knows one hundred ways To say “hungry” and “blood” and “tooth.”
And, yes, she taught me those words.
So watch me now as I rend, gnash, and chew.
117.
All My Relations
I AM RELATED, by blood and marriage, to men who hit women, and to men and women who hit children, and to men and women in jail and in prison and on parole for stealing and robbing and raping and shooting and stabbing and punching and kicking and forging and abetting and neglecting and manslaughtering and murdering and dealing and buying and muling and abandoning and vandalizing and breaking and entering and jacking and driving without insurance and driving under the influence and driving without a license and vehicular homiciding and shoplifting and deserting and violating and failing to pay on time and failing to pay at all and failing to yield and failing to stop and failing and failing and failing and failing.
So many felonies and misdemeanors.
Therefore, I have been at parties, weddings, births, barbecues, tailgaters, games, proms, funerals, baptisms, and graduations with convicts and ex-convicts whom I love and whom I hate and whom I have met only once and hope to never see again.
I have been victimized by some of these criminals. I have been the subject and object of their misdemeanors and felonies.
Scholars talk about the endless cycle of poverty and racism and classism and crime. But I don’t see it as a cycle, as a circle. I see it as a locked room filled with the people who share my DNA. This room has recently been set afire and there’s only one escape hatch, ten feet off the ground. And I know I have to build a ladder out of the bones of my fallen family in order to climb to safety.
118.
How to Argue with a Colonialist
SHERMAN,” SAYS Mr. Blanc. “I am sorry that you Interior Salish Indians lost your wild salmon to the Grand Coulee Dam. But, honestly, can’t you do your religious ceremonies and cultural stuff with wild salmon from elsewhere? Or with salmon you farm yourself?”
“Yes,” I say to Mr. Blanc. “Many of us Interior Salish Indians do order wild salmon at restaurants. We definitely eat and enjoy wild salmon caught in rivers not our own. And, yes, we also farm our own salmon as well. But, honestly, Mr. Blanc, comparing outsider and farmed salmon to our own wild salmon is like comparing bobblehead Jesus to the real Jesus. One is plastic and the other one is blood.”
119.
Dear Native Critics, Dear Native Detractors
I WRITE ABOUT this shit because this shit happened to me.
Did shit like this happen to you? Did this shit happen to some Indian you love? Some Indian you know? Some Indian you knew?
This shit happened to me. This shit happened to Indians I love. This shit happened to Indians I hate.
This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened.
Now, let’s pick up a hand drum and sing it together.
This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to me. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to you. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to Indians I love and hate. Way ya way ya way ya way ya ho.
This shit happened.
This shit happens.
This shit is happening now.
But if this shit didn’t happen to you, dear Indian, if this shit never happened to you, then I am happy for you, I am happy for you, way ya hi ya, I am happy for you, if this shit didn’t happen to you, then I feel joy for you, I feel joy for you.
I feel joy for you, way ya hi ya, so much joy for you.
But, dear Indian, if this shit didn’t happen to you, then why do you need to judge the shit that happened to other Indians?
Why do you, like a schoolteacher, hand out grades to the shit that happened to us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us for the shit that was done to us?
Why do you shame us, the already shamed, who sing our poems and tell our stories because we want to be unashamed?
I am the Indian trying to be unashamed.
Way ya hi ya.
I want to be unashamed.
Way ya hi ya.
I am a Child of the Sun.
Way ya hi ya.
And there is nothing that can clean you like the sun.
Way ya hi ya.
I expose my shame to the sun.
Way ya hi ya.
I illuminate my shame.
Way ya hi ya.
I want my shame to burn, to burn, way ya hi ya, to burn, way ya hi ya, to burn away, burn away, burn away.
And maybe, maybe, as I sing, maybe, maybe, I can teach other Indians, the Clan of the Ashamed, to leave that clan and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Dear Native Critic, dear Native Detractor, do you judge me because I want to be new? Do you judge me because I am not the same kind of Indian as you?
120.
Slight