Three Sonnets

Bison Burgers and Fry Bread

• Among my people, here again I am,
• Preparing to be welcomed to the feast.
• The “immigrant,” you’re undisturbed, at least,
• Leaned back, as though you do not give a damn –
• Before us, bison, sweet potato-yam,
• And fry bread, not the bloated loaf of yeast
• Which you would b e provided further east,
• From family, with sauerkraut and ham.
• Could I adore you any more? Black glasses
• To screen your round, perceptive, Dresden eye,
• At last, you try my fry bread, (no molasses),
• Approving it with love – my German spy.
• Our friendly, female Wolf Clan server passes.
• You tip her, reverent as at Versailles.

From Chilhowee Mountain

• When I look out from proud Chilhowee Mountain,
• Upon a boulder balanced on the ground,
• Subdued, I hear two crows call, with the sound
• The rushing river utters like a fountain
• Of voices lost and waiting, once more found.
• I raise one hand to shade my eyes, no doubting
• My deepest intuition, all around
• Me nothing but the russet leaves and browned,
• Snug fringe of my attire as I stand scouting
• The landscape from nine hundred feet in air.
• The boulder is a soul beneath me, shouting,
• Reminding me of my ancestral birth
• Around this mound they call Spearfinger’s lair.
• No bond exists to rival ours, on Earth.

Reservation

• My reservation is a reservation
• Where Red Paint gazes at his mobile phone –
• A transcendental Indian, alone
• Adorned in the full feather of our Nation;
• While Wildcat emulates his isolation,
• Around his throat, a choker made of bone—
• Suspicious, steady, ready to disown
• His flesh and blood, with no clear explanation.
• Along Main Avenue, they greet the tourists
• Who hold a honeymooning hand, and laugh,
• Who claim, “We share your shame. We share your grief.”
• But Wildcat and Red Paint – grim as jurists –
• Arise, to pose for one more photograph,
• And only their sad eyes show disbelief.

Jennifer Reeser is a poet, critic, and a translator of French and Russian literature. Her most recent book is a novel-in-verse, The Lalaurie Horror (Saint James Infirmary, 2013).