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 dumb beasts who could cut fire out of the whitest sand he played english across the trail where girls turned plum wild garlic and strained words through the window of night he spoke through numb lips and breathed frontier
b)
he heard snatches of comment going up from the river bank all them injuns is people first and besides for this buckskin why we even shoot at them and seems like a sign of warm dead as a horse friendship and time to pedal their eyes to lean out and say the truth all you injuns is just white keys
k)
just the warpath just the all time disgust ringing rescue acts for the boys and injuns for the nights all misdeeds at the milk house all heap shoots by the sagebrush all the grub is somewhere down in the hungry bellies of drunks all the dog cries are announced at the backdoor
o)
injun s mu st hang straigh t bl ack arrows o ff their sh oulders an d be tha ankf ul and b e faithf ul a nd be tr ustful of si lver and lu ck