Recite the Names of All the Suicided Indians

Painting by Robert Tate

Recite the Names of All the Suicided Indians

I.
Do it under your breath he said,
this guy back home.
Telling me something
about chanting.
Until the little bones
behind each ear
pound.
And the air swirls
off the sides
of your tongue.
Until the words
become
small projectiles.
Huffed out
of your chest
alive.

II.
His uncle's boy
handcuffed
roughed up.
Hard set chin
quivering
beneath cakes of blood.
His little sister
crooked braid
falling down her back
falling down
hung over
from her first big drunk.
Those times
he stood by.
Without the words.

III.
Whittling matchsticks
drumming
humming with his fingertips.
Lighting smoking-wicked lamps
that smell like stories.
Shuffling decks of cards
and playing them out
hand
after aging
hand.
Betting on memories
we gather here
in his house,
Until someone's ghost
begins to sing
and this year
finally
we learn to join in.

IV.
Obituaries
read like tribal rolls
he says,
and saves his rice money.
Memorial wreathes
cost more each year.
Too many die
from lack of the language.
Too many too young
too Indian or too little.

Gashkendam.
He is lonesome.
So many gone silent
like the songs.
Go deaf if you must he said
but keep singing your name
your life
keep singing
your name
your life.
Nagamon.
Sing.

V.
So let me
chant
for you
each one
The names
of all
the suicided
Indians.


Kimberly Blaeser