Minidoka Was a Concentration Camp in Idaho
- Minidoka Was a Concentration Camp in Idaho
W. Todd Kaneko, poetry
I am afraid that all my ancestorshave gathered my words like birds
collect hair from the deadfor nesting, an abundance of silence,
whole spools of it ready to tetherme to the trees. I am a new father,
too young for ghost stories, too freshto remember what it was like to shiver
out on the prairie. I see my own breath,sometimes when my son cries
at night. He doesn't have to describethose things he fears in the dark
because my grandmother told methe world will never be safe for us
when she refused to say the nameof that place we come from. Minidoka,
I say to him and my ancestors layfingers across my lips. Do not be ashamed
because we are alive, because the birdswill one day pluck all of us clean. [End Page 699]
w. todd kaneko is author of The Dead Wrestler Elegies, coauthor of Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology, and his work can be seen in many journals and anthologies. A Kundiman Fellow, he is coeditor of the online literary journal Waxwing and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he teaches creative writing at Grand Valley State University.
