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
