Five Poems

Five Poems Kimberly Blaeser (bio) the knife my father gave me at eight One inch longer than my empty ring finger,no field master multi-function wonder,a single blade Case slimline trapperpocket knife my brother would teach meto thumb— open closed open closed open againuntil I could slide it out quick and smoothuntil I could point it, flick my wrist,throw and sink it every time blade firstin the sweet summer White Earth clay,respect it, wipe it clean on my jeans.The knife my father gave me at eightwhispered to me the things he left unsaid.Small, sharp, and pearl-handled pretty—it does the work of any man’s blade. Previously published in In Other Words: Poems by Wisconsin Poets in English and Chinese [End Page 104] plead the blood Now search for stories they have buriedlike bodies— silence of hidden graves.How we unearth night-crawler truths:children and words (they whispered cot to cot) where dark ritualsfound them— devoured.Oh, holy edifice where robe-blessed led,schooled in terror brown charges,how claim the unnamed from Wiindigooterritories. Bargain in language of tabernaclefor sifted earth remnants, lost futures.Ourstolen— restolen. Previously published in The Poets’ Republic (Scotland) [End Page 105] quiescence I Soft pampas grass. We bed down like deer, rest after the dying. Spirits all walk towards horizon. Transform against the evening chrysalis of sky. II You feed me your dark-eyed loneliness, wisdom from Dr. Fauci, and sectors of tangerine small as my thumb. Scent the air. Everything is shrunken or overblown now. I am undressing. Blue jeans, flannel. My polished toes naked in the damp tickling fronds. The bottom of my feet tender as story. III Soon we are turning to B & W. 100 years ago. Just before Betty White was born. Just before that other dying time. Those epidemic faces— framed like myth in our eyes. Everybody sainted but us. IV We tether ourselves, but things grow out of control. Network images on repeat— guns and knees, shattered windows, and black death. Plague upon plague. V I keep seeing the picture of the elk, its antlers turned to tree. Bare black branches silhouetted against a stormy sky. In that tangle, a singing bird. VI Let us stand now where the grass is tall, settle our legs there among the growing. Listen like all forlorn for the least crackle of air. Until the nocturnal bats hum our names. [End Page 106] Perhaps then we shall feel. Edges. Splintering. How soon a bough, a stem, a tributary? How soon we too shall antler like deer woman. VII Yes, rise now— after the dying. Thick-necked and sturdy. Russet with hope— await the perch of bird. beneath the berry moon Nii bas giizis, oh Night Sun,what mischief have you made?Ode’iminikewi-giizis— Oh heart moon,when berries the size of your fingernailbloom and ripen, fragrant and dangerousas night under June summer sky. Oh globeof perfect greed, midnight giizis who watcheshow sweetly they entice and fill us. On tonguestheir glib red holy satisfying as kisses.But oh, Strawberry Moon, you also feed us hungerfor more days of copper sun and loon nights.Under your tickling light lovers call like owls:Who whoo? Oh you yoooou, only you!When our strawberry hearts stretch in languid airthe wayward fruit of your longing ours,see how full moon eyes of sweethearts glimmer—how fleeting, the jealous glow of summer. found recipe, mikinaak dibaajimowin I A tiny woman who’d slept with hunger, my grandma dreamed always of warm food. Wild rice, flavored with berries and venison fat. Fresh fish, coated and cooked on an open fire. Turtle soup, above all else. Even into old age, Nookomis could never resist any food that wandered across her path. Always with a bag for gathering nuts, a sharp pocket knife for wild asparagus, she padded along, kerchiefed and bent like a letter C. [End Page 107] Poor snapper. Mikinaak. Who would have expected it? He grabbed the long oak branch, hung on just as she said he would. His shell already a rattle...