Posted by She stirs the soup,
hand swirling wooden spoon.
Focused flicking wrist.
Can’t afford to let anything stick.
It must stick to ribs.
Ribs that should be hidden behind a layer of childhood fat
from dinners of moose meat fried in lard.
Potatoes. Berries. Fiddleheads.
Ours protrude
like skeleton harps.
Wooden spoon,
takes place of red willow
when we cannot pick our own switch,
transforms from food bearer to power keeper.
Silence
She cries after by the window,
quiet like a house mouse.
She knows no other way,
to show us the right way.
It is harder on her,
than on our bare brown asses.
Wooden spoon
clenched in her hand
as she stands by the fire.
The flames fueled by wood
we gathered
when the dew lay h e a v y.
The fire
is hungry.
All of us,
we hunger for more.
She holds her drum above it.
Rubs it until its voice has returned.
Spoon shape shifts into a drum stick.
She sings the one song
that was passed down to her
by her Grandma.
Wailing woman
calling out to
the moon.
My mother
And her wooden spoon.
Reclaim the Warrior 