09-30-2021
Laura Da'
Instruments of the True Measure
Moving lines of settlement
are baptized in the bile
of their own digestion.
Chickasaw in the northern parcel of the state
Choctaw in the central.
Domesday Book scrolls meld into the
linen press
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Reliance on the crude materials of measure
bows to precision. Watery ink
like corn mash bourbon haloing the mouth:
dress the shale in a trickster’s uniform,
stretch marked by the moving zeniths:
the First, Second, Third, Fourth Principal Meridians.
Thence west on a blank line
to the Indian Meridian.
Onion Skin
Portents of fierce winter
undermined by movement:
the age-old songs
of chill warning
grow sparse
over stretched miles and
vexing meridians.
Corn that sprouts lushly
then offers abundant ears
on the banks of the Scioto
gives way
to the thin skins
of allotment onions
along the lower banks
of the Kaw.
A subtle conjuring
winds under the skin
when the tract
severed in twain
twangs within the body;
new lots break
into fractions
alongside the nations.
Of the thousand
who walked from Ohio,
Lazarus, his wife
and three of their children
drop a loose square
of foundation logs —
36°50′25″N 94°36′36″W
A prairie wolf
at the edge of the camp
grows bold enough
to gnaw at the dried blood
that still clings
to the saddle’s rawhide ties.
Some say an onion,
halved and burned
black over hardwood
then pressed
to the torso
will lift the wet rack
of consumption.
When the first spring breaks,
the survivors
wear a layered blister
straddling the hollow of their chests;
green corn sprouts slender.
Timber Scribe
Between the membrane of fur
and muscle, blades fevered by appetite
dimpled the prairie with denuded bison.
The pick’s sharp interruption
of the ground’s moss and prairie grass union
uncoupled Kansas soil.
A timber scribe,
small enough to hide
in the curve of the palm;
portable instrument
of the Great Reconnaissance,
subtle gouge for the lonely mind.
-from Instruments of the True Measure (University of Arizona Press, 2018), selected by Fall 2021 Guest Editor, CMarie Fuhrman
A member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is Eastern Shawnee. Her first book, Tributaries, was published by the University of Arizona Press and won a 2016 American Book Award. Da’ has held residencies at the Richard Hugo House, Tin House, and Jack Straw. Her newest book, Instruments of the True Measure, is the winner of the Washington State Book Award. Da’ lives near Seattle with her husband and son.
04-13-2021
Victoria Chang
04-13-2021
Victoria Chang