A BAR ON TURTLE ISLAND Second Chances is nursing his third beer. He’s White, wears a worn baseball cap, is looking for work, always finds it here. After all, this is the bar where everyone knows your name. Presumed Innocence is with him. He’s a big guy, White under all that scruff, a total teddybear unless you get him angry. You can’t stay mad at him, though. This is the bar where everyone’s got your back. Like Freedom! There he is, doling out White-ass daps to everyone, Cis as pigskin, his arm wrapped around the White back of Inherited Wealth, hoping he’ll buy the next round. Oh, they’re all here! Assumed Authority is holding court with State’s Rights and Objectivity, their White grins flashing as darts fly by. Bullseye! Stand Your Ground’s hands are just too White to miss. This is the bar where Patriotism pours shots on White legs that don’t feel right since the war. The work is hard, but the regulars tip well. Working Class gives him a White nod as he hauls the trash into the kitchen where no one sees Tradition scrub dishes White as milk. She knows she’s loved, thinks of Right-to-Life tucked tight in his White bed, trusts the world is hard and good. Outside White Feminism pounds at the door, shouts about all the ways she’d run things better. Standing on rampless stairs, she won’t ever turn round, won’t ever find out […]

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THE UNINVITED SETTLER MAKES HER PRETTY REGRETS Somewhere along the way we forgot how Things work, how birds fly over, how order Catches from wing to wing. Nature allows Almost anything, except a border. Somewhere along the way we got it wrong. Mistook the land for a claimable thing, Drew lines, built walls, told tales of who belongs, As if the earth weren’t one great belonging. Longing for an order clean as coffins, We killed, we caged, we maimed; named our feast days After butchers. Thought same meant safe. Often A voice would catch from ear to ear, and say,     “Of home you’ve made a prison.” We couldn’t hear.     For all we knew of life was how to fear.

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