Marc Awodey

Three Ghosts



1.flower day 
On Flower Day exiles remember
the dead, with milk
and flowers placed on standing stones.
This Land of the Grandmother
is like any unchosen land.

Prodigal deposits of mineral equity
wait to be taken from under feet.
Threadbare prairies marked by cairns
veil snake holes from needles of rain.

They who once knew no borders
now edge a well defined emptiness,
for only unturned fields were esteemed
by the parents preserved below 
these memorials bearing English 

translations of names 
recent generations 
would find hard to pronounce.

2. watchers
Gaping spirits watch 
through mica windows at Acoma.
Some have matted hair, 

curled finger nails,  
Some still have lips, 
and eye lids. 

They watch water carriers 
zigzagging up the mesa trail. 
They see coffee pots, medicine 

bottles a few inches tall. 
They watch children, old women 
burnishing ceramics, 

young men circling want ads, 
brides bathing, 
old uncles playing cards, 

house cats lost in the hunt. 
They see vapor trails discarded
by intercontinental flights.

Some have no right hands 
or left feet. All were once 
heaving loaves of birth.

Watching is all they can do.

3. Cahokia
When people 
were allowed to believe the World 

had come to an end
centuries before William Henry Harrison,
no East St. Louis was dreamt of
on virulent prairies near Cahokia.

We may now pretend to taste russet 
formulations of remedy, and admire 
the elegant emissaries dispatched 
by the curious Lord Thirteen Rabbit.

We may guess the rustle 
of bright vestments woven from feathers,
and of solemn farm families worshiping 
virgin demigoddesses tied in a row. 

We may dream the chant of prayer 
that was an apology feebly addressed
to ancestors, posted by archaeology
from the last day of the World.