Scripture cards from both New Testament

and Old.  They help me remember.

Scars from the basement of the yellow house,

my first home.

Sweet grass bundles,

photos of Ningozi—young.

Ernie’s shadow.

Historical trauma

dental floss

wretched vows of integrity.

Birthday candles

Louise’s memory

ni mama’s sorrow

paper

pens

asema.

Her blessing of life goes on.

Miigwech ni mama.

Published in This Is Where, a collection of Louise’s poetry 

I’m from Bineshi’s bloodline.

That’s Bill Baker if you don’t speak Ojibwemowin1.

Ni migizi dodem2.

I’m from sitting on green boxes on

6-mile corner, watching cars go by.

Sometimes their four doors didn’t match.

I’m from Packer games on Sundays, Greyhound trips for the

holidays, and Easter baskets with Karla.

I’m from women with the same last name and a father

none of us knew.

I’m from the woods; northern.

Where pines and birch bark blanket

both bends of tribal roads,

paved and gravel.

I’m from a single-parent household.

Michael Jackson cassette tapes, Purple Rain posters, and latchkey kids.

I’m from Title V programs. Commods on pantry shelves,

cucumbers grown in

grandpa Jake’s garden, and a

mean ol’ dog named Turkey.

I’m from “crying won’t change anything” and you

“should’ve known better.”

I’m from where silence is normal and

punitive.

Hugs are warm and forced Catholicism still

weighs heavy on my mother’s shoulders.

At 73—the burden has lightened.

This is where I’ll always return.

___

1.Ojibwemowin: Ojibwe language.

2.Ni migizi dodem: I am eagle clan.

Published in This Is Where, a collection of Louise’s poetry 

I’ve become

an empty shell case in an abandoned room.

Rigidly lonesome

far from lonely highways

I have travelled before.  I recognize

this pattern.

This seduction—

I am my own heroin.

Lying bare

-stolen.

I yearn with anger.

I yearn to fight

to bleed, create new brave scars

standing in snow tracks in these concrete plains—

I am desert sand, proud with no water.

A pipe carrier

with no elder—David has passed.

I am without.

Those thundering storms

Won.  Alone

I stand

resting in steel chains,

losing the woman I want to be.

Published in This Is Where, a collection of Louise’s poetry