From Injun. Published by Jackpine Press in 2014. Jordan Abel is a Nisga'a writer living in Vancouver. His debut book, Place of Scraps (Talonbooks), won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.  

a)

he played injun in gods country

where boys proved themselves clean

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dumb beasts who could cut fire

out of the whitest sand

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he played english across the trail

where girls turned plum wild

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garlic and strained words

through the window of night

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he spoke through numb lips and

breathed frontier

b)

he heard snatches of comment

going up from the river bank

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all them injuns is people first

and besides for this buckskin

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why we even shoot at them

and seems like a sign of warm

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dead as a horse friendship

and time to pedal their eyes

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to lean out and say the truth

all you injuns is just white keys

k)

just the              warpath

just the              all time disgust

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                ringing rescue

                acts for the boys and

                injuns for the nights

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all misdeeds at the milk           house

all heap                   shoots by the sagebrush

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                all the grub         is somewhere

                down in the hungry bellies

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of drunks             all the dog cries

                are announced

                at            the backdoor

o)

injun s               mu        st           hang

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              straigh         t

              bl    ack arrows

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              o ff their

              sh          oulders

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              an d  be    tha     ankf  ul

              and  b e              faithf   ul

              a nd       be     tr   ustful

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of si  lver and

                  lu   ck

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