Elise Paschen is the author of Bestiary (Red Hen Press, 2009), as well as Infidelities, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, and Houses: Coasts. Her poems have been published in The New Republic, TriQuarterly and The Hudson Review, among other magazines, and in numerous anthologies. The editor of Poetry Speaks to Children and co-editor of Poetry Speaks and Poetry in Motion, Paschen teaches in the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Wí'-gi-e
Anna Kyle Brown. Osage.
1896-1921. Fairfax, Oklahoma.
Because she died where the ravine falls into water.
Because they dragged her down to the creek.
Though frost blanketed the grass she cooled her feet in the spring.
Because I turned the log with my foot.
Her slippers floated downstream into the dam.
Because, after the thaw, the hunters discovered her body.
Because she lived without our mother.
Because she had inherited headrights for oil beneath the land.
She was carrying his offspring.
The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up, he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered, the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tse-the, the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
I will wade across the river of the blackfish, the otter, the beaver.
I will climb the bank where the willow never dies.
Published in Bestiary (Red Hen Press, 2009)