The Sioux Nation


scattered camps of men
not yet out of their tents
as some said here

here is our home
again and again
or they said nothing at all

in that rumored pause
of knowing they had won
what was lost and lost

nothing won
in talons
of transgenetic memory

like gods in a puzzle
stories of Crow
at the entrails of bear

as poisonous snakes
wisdom
as poisonous

all these fools and wisemen
taming snakes
and scorpion and spider

as wells into that ocean
which is its own reprieve