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
