Invisible Indians, and: Romantic Savage, and: Lost Bird (review)

Invisible Indians

Waiting by the back door of 7-11
For your fifteen minute break
I peeked in to see your body
Cringing amid the bold, bright colors
Of cigarette ads and sale signs.
Your soothing silence broken
By the steady beeps of your cash register.
Your soft reservation accent
Twisting your English
Into something
Suddenly feeble and foreign.

In that frozen alleyway,
We huddled together
With a shared cigarette
As those florescent lights
Drained our Indianness away
And we became
Nameless and invisible.

Later, we took that dangerous shortcut
Through the darkness of the city park--
Because crunching across frozen grass
Reminded you of home
And we were startled
By a soft rush of wings overhead--
An owl silhouetted
Against the brittle moonlight
Of urban winter
"Ko-ko-ko!"

We lifted up our arms in greeting
And were once again Indian.

Romantic Savage

I was standing in the 90 degree sun
In 18 pounds of deerskin dress
Selling my husband's crafts
To tight fisted tourists
When she suddenly
Pushed by me and grabbed his arm.
"I want my next husband to be Indian,"
She announced.

I thought about emptying
My water bottle onto her head
But figured I'd feel better
If I dumped it on my own.
I thought about grabbing her arm
And asking if she'd prefer an Indian wife.
I thought about offering her some Pepto Bismol
To help her digest her Harlequin romance novels
Without undue heartburn and emotional diarrhea.

Instead I offered her my husband.

Lost Bird

When I speak to you in Ojibwe,
your body startles
with ancestral recognition.

Then you tell me in English
you don't understand
and the look in your eyes
reminds me of
the bewildered stare
of a wild animal
caught in a box trap
that, like a prison cell
leaves only the body intact.