Page 16 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
P. 16
head—I imagine he was dizzy with the attention he received from all the Indians along
the Missouri. Instead of a slave they saw a man of great power and might and wished for
their women to sleep with him in order to retrieve his power for their own.
Traps —They are Trapping the Animals
Lewis and Clark are sending fox to the great white father.
They have trapped a spirit fox, a fox that carries the weighted soul
of a man possessed by bad spirits.
Meriwether places the caged fox at the edge of camp every day
because his cage is foul as pig’s blood, he says.
But I know Meriwether is afraid.
Every night the caged fox moves
when night fastens
the moon-heavy water
to spirits
when light sifts
down in dark currents
and the river
begins chanting.
Do not look
there
at the bottom
there
along the lip of shore
water channeling the thing-not-named
the dim sky water carries is older than time
older than blood
bigger
In the deepest still place of the river
