Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

They pierce the body like knives, leave
a man swollen with poisonous stories.
Now he lies abed, fevered, breath
rattling his throat like a dried-up plant.
They call for me: Jacinta, you know words.
Come lay your hands on his forehead.
But what I know are medicines from heads
much older than mine; crushed leaves
gathered from windswept hills, not words
so much as roots, not roots so much as story.
I made a plaster for his chest, planted
a mugwort bundle under his pillow. Breathe,
I hummed into his glittering eyes, breathe.
Heard the dark buzzing inside his head,
knew the spirits wanted to supplant
his soul. Between his fingers I left
the sticky cobwebs of a story.
The only cure for ghost words
is salty cleansing waves of words.
Sail oceans, I said, dream islands, give breath
to your own cure. Make up a story,
scare the poison out of your head;