Louise Halfe

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For Blankets and Trinkets

My father dreamt

our winter sleep and lifting wails
was the coming Chinook

not knowing when we traded
our furs we'd hover in bones.

He said our winters would be
pelts of thick sky

no longer weighed down

in buffalo curls.

That year the frog arrived

my heart wrapped

around the thick traders blankets.
My babies pimpled with poison.

Oh little one, I wasn't as fortunate
as your aunt. She was traded
with a man of wonder heart.

I've become a gopher

jumping hole to hole

cutting roots to keep

my teeth dull. I was crazed hunger.
My bones piercing my flesh

arms dried branches too weak

to bury my speckled babies.

My heart, a gooseberry

rolling past my tongue.

I went with the man

with a wooden tail

his grunting and guttural tongue
a grizzly that eats my breast.

I am parched grass

satisfying my thirst

with spirits hidden in his water.

My dance frozen in my feet.
My father's wails long
Buried in winter sleep.

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