Passing Rez School the Day before Thanksgiving Day, Unoriginal Sin and a Redskin Pilgrim’s Retrogression

Footpath passing a school, undiscovered by a nun black at her blackboard’s explanation of Vanishing Americans’ vanishing, I find myself flagged, by two not quite red rows, unfurled into grin, two white, and by one five-pointed, pale star. My lips let my teeth pledge allegiance, again, my fingers orbiting their own warmth, around this pen, as straight as Old Glory’s tall pole, but admittedly, ingloriously smaller, and, as the star descends, it draws, from Christian calendars’ precision constellations, a child—hand cramped from fisting fact onto dusty black clutching a wand, to draw him Everywhere. Though the teacher scowls us back to my dead, risen from The Trail of Tears as chalk, this day before Thanksgiving Day; a child will lead, as I finish taking my walk.