Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England

Cheryl Savageau

313 Cheryl Savageau (b. 1950) Cheryl Savageau (Abenaki/French) is a poet and visual artist whose work draws on family, traditional stories, history, and the land. She has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, and her work is widely anthologized. Her second book, Dirt Road Home, was a finalist for the Paterson Prize and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has taught at the University of New Mexico, the University of Massachusetts, Clark University, and the College of the Holy Cross. Her quilts, paintings, and assemblages have been on display at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, and at the University of New Hampshire. Her most recent book is Mother/Land, the source of the first six poems below; the remaining three come from Dirt Road Home. Poison in the Pond i. the skin on my arms burns It is hot today and sticky and poison is flowing out of orange barrels into the waters of the pond my eyes burn my lips burn my tongue is thick I cannot swallow my throat is sore as strep the fish are dying turtles wash up on shore the lilies shrivel sweetflag blackens cattails are ragged sticks 314 abenaki the floating island has stopped wandering but it is for our own good they tell us and no one leaves. we tough it out those orange barrels the bans on swimming on eating fish our lungs burn the air is hot and thick this pond used to want to be a river now it wants to be a meadow these orange barrels will teach it who’s boss ii. the baby is born wrong there is something wrong with the baby something is wrong there are seizures there is something about the brain the parents are teenagers did you take drugs you must’ve taken drugs pond water laps the shore Cheryl Savageau 315 you can see straight to the bottom iii. not everyone is tired tired when they go to bed tired when they wake up too tired to answer the phone too tired to get dressed too tired to fix a meal, to take a walk not everyone is tired but lots of us are iv. it is twenty years since the poison barrels floated on flint pond some of us are in our twenties some in our thirties some fifty or older we ache ache ache we can’t digest our food we sleep but don’t sleep we push ourselves and crash we lie in bed and watch tv don’t touch us our skin burns there are bites from insects nobody sees water dripping on shoulders when there is no rain our feet run beneath our blankets like dogs dreaming of the chase our bones have turned to sand 316 abenaki v. it is for your own good it is all in your mind it is depression it is a new disease it is an old disease only nobody knows its name it is inherited it is a french-canadian disease it is a woman’s disease it is all in your head there’s no such thing vi. here take these little orange pills it’s for your own good Smallpox “. . . some of us did not die” —June Jordan i. it is the animals’ revenge for being held in pens bred for meat and docility we don’t have it here Cheryl Savageau 317 ii. it is not the big pox syphilis which they also got from sheep we don’t have it here iii. there is nothing small about it when it comes the back aches, the head hurts, the body burns, the skin erupts iv. as power often does it comes in four manifestations the kind and distinct pox the confluent the purples the bloody pox it comes in four manifestations this does not surprise us v. in other places where women are healers 318 abenaki the pox has whispered secrets in constantinople in africa women search out the mildest cases harvest liquid from the pustules scratch it lightly into outstretched arms vi. in boston in london people with scratched arms live vii. none of us have scratched arms none of us have mild cases we bleed beneath our skin that sloughs off our living flesh viii. it is some...