Laura Da’

Summer 2023 | Poetry

False Deer

Cougar is the most named noun in the English language.

Plural cache bones sleek with stringy cartilage and dank

 

boxwood and bone marrow reek were a singular fawn yesterday.

Leg stammer, lung whistle, and aghast two step

 

in the crepuscular hours that annotate the margins of those

new towns that cover the old. Fear costs language. Cougar

 

may find its etymological root in the phrase false deer.

Coiled and imbricated baskets printed with the motif

 

of baskets in baskets. The names of hunters are open

to sacred whims; Wet red lacunae of silent

 

but open mouths. It is certain if you spy

a cougar that is the creature’s will. Remember

 

not to kneel or flee. I misspoke in Shawnee before a crowd.

I was speaking to the crisis of the hunted—tasting

 

an orthography of the sound of an arm

being broken by teeth and whisps of leather-leaf grass

 

parted by yellow eyes. I wanted to say I think around

the pain, but I said ne’menyeelepe ta’menyeeleeki.

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee. She is a recipient of the Native American Arts and Cultures Fellowship, an Artist Trust Fellowship, and fellowships from Hugo House and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Da’ is the current Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. Her first book, Tributaries, won the 2016 American Book Award. Her latest book, Instruments of the True Measure, won the Washington State Book Award. 

Laura recommends Dana Levin's "Now Do You Know Where You Are" and Cedar Sigo's "All This Time".

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