Myth of the Vanishing Indian

In the archives there is a drawing

of a colonizer’s dream, never realized.

The National American Indian Memorial

was meant to testify to our existence

as a once noble people after

we’d all died, leaving behind

the entire western hemisphere.

(We’re not supposed to be here.)

We were all supposed to vanish

(be vanquished)

in the face of progress

(genocidal campaigns).

Now they call us other names,

but at one time they called us a

Pride. What is pride? In my language

the word for boogers is smeteqsen,

while smetsqen are brains,

and smatsqen is the word for pride.

I think in the ancestors’ eyes

they may as well all be the same,

for all the good they do

without the spirit.

Ah, the spirit—your se’li,

it sounds almost like sa’le

which is the word for heart,

or sa’les which are the hands.

Words reveal much

about a people’s beliefs.

Pride and brains are on par

with snot, while hands and heart

are the tools of the se’li. This, I think,

is why we never went extinct

according to design, why they never

got to build a memorial to our doom,

a monument, taking pride in absolute

success at genocide.