The marsh islands with their little tufted backs
Someone’s home,
everywhere is always someone’s home
Late sun fills the window of the Amtrak N.E.
Mouths open in the trees, in the mud
When our bones are found
it’s called a haunting
Where do the birds go? Who
gets a funeral? Everything is a burial
ground, even the sky.
In the old ways, this was someone’s back,
The constellations bulletholes straight through
his stomach
Blasted with light—
How many NDNs must die here
for anyone to know?
The train babbles on about everything
else. I don’t want
to talk about the land so much–
I don’t wanna eco-NDN,
But the marsh grasses
look like the most loved and lonely
parts of my body
Where do songs go when it is dark?
What names
moved through these trees
The soft now-grass
The underbellies of the leaves