“When Her Body Is A Battleground” by Kimberly Blaeser

Awarded the Indigenous Poets Prize in the Adult (National) category

 When Her Body is a Battleground

                        i.
When ikwewag litter ditches like deer,
when girl bodies sink—skipped rocks
off greased fingers of Wiindigo.

Inademod—ribbons on our skirt a keening.

                        ii.
Soon funeral casserole becomes habit—
macaroni-corn-hamburger fix in cold basements.
Church bakers worry three eggs in a cake

is extravagance—unnecessary as salt
on a tomato. As two choruses of goodbye.
Her fistful of grave dirt cocked like a gun.

No one can waltz around death in the end.

                        iii.
When her body is a vermillion stranger
a heaving caught, target of gaze.

When her body is a battleground.

                        iv.
Make of your voice a search party.
We, soothsayers, know predator eyes become rivers;
smooth words, a weapon of maji-manidoog.

Only a wide open trunk means no body.

         v.
She learns how survivors speak of their captors:
my fault my fault, a confiteor of grievous—
silk gown of words—bruised skin worn thin.

Our stories rot. Reek of futurelessness.

                        vi.
On the day she drank holy water like beer,
rammed the Ford against the wrought iron gate;
lace doilies, communion wafers multiplied

in virgin births. Ladies Aid servers looked away.
Oh Saint Nishki, patron of the Red Landless.
In death, is faith an answer or a question?

                       vii.
What then shall we craft of the breaking?
Weep holes in the clay of our bodies.

Only a porous heart withstands floods.

viii.
Maamawi. . . mashkogaabawiyang.*

*“Together we stand strong.” From the Strong Women’s Song created by Anishinaabe kwewag and Zhoganosh Ikwewag 
in the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario.

—————

Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets, is a writer, photographer, and scholar. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. Blaeser edited Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry, and her photographs, picto-poems, and ekphrastic pieces have appeared in exhibits such as “Visualizing Sovereignty,” and “No More Stolen Sisters.” An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, Blaeser is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation who grew up on the reservation. A Professor Emerita at UW–Milwaukee, 2024 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College, and MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, her accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Her book Ancient Light is forthcoming from University of Arizona Press in 2024.