April 04, 2014
We turned our backs & spit
out the medicine of salvation.
We let the sun melt us in a
sweet conspiracy of heat.
Liquefied, we seeped
under white, alkaline soil
& shrugged when wagon
train wheels rolled over us.
We arose, dusted ourselves
off, but we’d been mottled
& mutated. We spoke
a strange, new language
like mashed potatoes
with skins left on.
We began to whisper
lies to our children &
they turned on us.
(Photo by Andy Eick)
Adrian C. Louis is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe in Nevada. He taught at Lakota College on the Pine Ridge reservation and now teaches at Minnesota State University in Marshall. He has written numerous volumes of poetry and fiction. This poem is reprinted from his book, Savage Sunsets (Westend Press, 2012).
You can visit Adrian Louis at adrian-c-louis.com.
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