Heid E. Erdrich

I was wondering why that guy wore the blanket coat, bone choker, rock watch, woven buckle, quilled Stetson— I was wondering why he wore that beaded vest, like a ledger drawing or a Winter Count, its skinny figure forever sneaking after two bison around belly to back, around back to belly— I was wondering why, when he said, I wear these getups every day— Every day, because these things are sacred, these things are prayer. Then I knew I could live this life If I had blue horses painted around and around me, shells and beads like rain in my ear praying Prairie open in me at stoplight, hard city, last call, bank line, coffee break, shopping cart, keycode, Prarie open in me Prarie open in me every day every day every day.

Tell a child she is composed of parts (her Ojibway quarters, her German half-heart) she'll find the existence of harpies easy to swallow. Storybook children never come close to her mix, but manticores make great uncles, Sphinx a cousin she'll allow, centaurs better to love than boys—the horse part, at least, she can ride. With a bestiary for a family album she's proud. Her heap of blankets, her garbage grin, prove she's descended of bears, her totem, it's true. And that German witch with the candy roof, that was her ancestor too. If swans can rain white rape from heaven, then what is a girl to do? Believe her Indian eyes, her sly French smile, her breast with its veins skim milk blue— She is the myth that is true.

after Frost We were the land's before we were. Or the land was ours before you were a land. Or this land was our land, it was not your land. We were the land before we were people, loamy roamers rising, so the stories go, or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul— What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll? Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands swimming being from women's hands, we originate, originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage. Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by, possessed by what we now no more possess. We were the land before we were people, dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go, or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots— Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off. They landed late, but canyons spoke them home. Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know. What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go? Could be cousins, left on the land bridge, contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll. In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay. Such as we were we gave most things outright (the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .) We were the land before we were a people, earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go, or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth— The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions, still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced. Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.

She couldn't help but sting my finger, clinging a moment before I flung her to the ground. Her gold is true, not the trick evening light plays on my roses. She curls into herself, stinger twitching, gilt wings folded. Her whole life just a few weeks, and my pain subsided in a moment. In the cold, she hardly had her wits to buzz. No warning from either of us: she sleeping in the richness of those petals, then the hand, my hand, cupping the bloom in devastating force, crushing the petals for the scent. And she mortally threatened, wholly unaware that I do this daily, alone with the gold last light, in what seems to me an act of love.

Given over to love, she un-balls the socks, lets fall debris of days, leaf litter, sand grain, slub of some sticky substance, picks it all for the sake of the stainless tub of the gleaming new front loader. Given over to love long ago, when her own exasperated moan bounced off the quaint speckled enamel of the top loader vowing: she'd do this always and well. She fell in love then, she fell in line— in a march of millions, you pair them, two by two, you marry the socks.

Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days. Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light making a music in the streets we wish we could keep. Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come. Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry. We could head north and north and never let this season go. Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light, knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves. Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.

Late summer, late afternoon, my work interrupted by bees who claim my tea, even my pen looks flower-good to them. I warn a delivery man that my bees, who all summer have been tame as cows, now grow frantic, aggressive, difficult to shoo from the house. I blame the second blooms come out in hot colors, defiant vibrancy— unexpected from cottage cosmos, nicotianna, and bean vine. But those bees know, I’m told by the interested delivery man, they have only so many days to go. He sighs at sweetness untasted. Still warm in the day, we inspect the bees. This kind stranger knows them in intimate detail. He can name the ones I think of as shopping ladies. Their fur coats ruffed up, yellow packages tucked beneath their wings, so weighted with their finds they ascend in slow circles, sometimes drop, while other bees whirl madly, dance the blossoms, ravish broadly so the whole bed bends and bounces alive. He asks if I have kids, I say not yet. He has five, all boys. He calls the honeybees his girls although he tells me they’re ungendered workers who never produce offspring. Some hour drops, the bees shut off. In the long, cool slant of sun, spent flowers fold into cups. He asks me if I’ve ever seen a Solitary Bee where it sleeps. I say I’ve not. The nearest bud’s a long-throated peach hollyhock. He cradles it in his palm, holds it up so I spy the intimacy of the sleeping bee. Little life safe in a petal, little girl, your few furious buzzings as you stir stay with me all winter, remind me of my work undone.

Indigenous Elvis works security: Chief Joseph hair, blue-black and pomped, turquoise and shell dangling from one ear, silver chunks of rings on every bronze knuckle. Indigenous Elvis works security: X-ray glances at your backpacks, laptops, empty still-moist shoes. Indigenous Elvis waves me to his line. A perfect gentlemen at all times, gingerly lifting my naked phone, holding the line as I return my computer and extra undies to my briefcase. Next line, next flight, Indigenous Elvis eases in too close, asks, "Where you headed this time?" Subtle tango, I lean away, wondering what it is he saw first gave me away— My beaded barrettes in their travel case? A slight turn to my eyes? Oh, mortification when I get him! Indigenous Elvis, at security, a third time. He lifts my carry-on, maneuvers my hand, gestures me close to ask, "How is my sweetheart?" Then against my neck, so my hairs rise with his sight, "How’s my sweetheart doing … your sister … ? ... the one that got away."

The bodies seemed so much like sleeping children that working with them felt “almost more like a kidnapping than archaeological work,” Dr. Miremont said. — New York Times , September 11, 2007 Thunder loves you, mumbles charms to warm you—folded cold body. Lightning’s pity picks you, licks a kiss, but what’s left to wick? Even direct hits miss— no amount of flash and hiss fires you. Inviolate virgin, inflammable channel to Gods long gone or gone underground, ghost-gray flecks left in the rock altar, your shelter for five centuries where you huddled, red-painted hair and wreathed with feathers. Weave threads of your shawl— not a shroud since you were live when left for dead—weave cover please, I beg your handlers. Pull stitches so that wound closes over your smoldered remains. They say you clutch your mother’s hair, strands in a bag sent up the mountain, an introduction to the Gods of Science, who read threaded DNA to determine who you were related to when human. Not the crushed boy near you, no brother he nor sister the girl, bound away to sacred silence, cased in plastic cased in glass. Visitors point and justify the past: See what they did—child sacrifice. Fattened ’em up, drugged ’em— Spanish violence, Christian influence, border fences, all deserved because of her wad of coca leaves and elaborate braids. Lightning’s mark spares you display. Singed cheek and blasted chest, blackened flesh looks less asleep, flashed back the fact you’re dead, a charred mummy, so far gone even Lightning’s longing couldn’t wake you. Thunder won’t forget you, hums a generator’s song in cooler vents to your coiled form in cold storage— song of your six years plus five centuries come to this: doom, doom, doom. Lightning still sighs:release, release, release.

This prisoner and other “ghost detainees” were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment and conditions, officials said. —“Rumsfeld Ordered Iraqi Suspect Held as ‘Ghost’ Prisoner,” San Francisco Chronicle , June 17, 2004 The ghost prisoner, a murderer, wishes he was invisible, sheer air, already dead. His narrow bed washes him away to dream escape through holy gaps that open in the grin of his small son. Lost teeth offer him a freedom so absurd he wakes and laughs. No one hears the ghost prisoner. Whether he groans or bears stoically what instruments we’ve paid to play this march toward a freedom so absurd we wake and silently shake our heads. We do not speak ill of the dead. The ghost prisoner, still murderer, wishes he was visible, fiery air, rallying the dead. His narrow cell just the place for prayer. Holy, holy, a ghost’s revenge pushed through gaps in his own gashed mouth, a curse so absurd, he wakes to its howl. No one says his name, his crimes, how many jolts it took to resurrect him as a betrayer of insurrection, paying for freedom’s ring. We do not want to know what it took. We’d rather not speak the dead ill. We do not want to know what it took to make him wish he were dead still.