An excerpt from “Onion Skin” by Indigenous poet Laura Dá.
Portents of fierce winter
undermined by movement:
the age-old songs
of chill warning
grow sparse
over stretched miles and
vexing meridians.
Corn that sprouts lushly
then offers abundant ears
on the banks of the Scioto
gives way
to the thin skins
of allotment onions
along the lower banks
of the Kaw.
A subtle conjuring
winds under the skin
when the tract
severed in twain
twangs within the body;
new lots break
into fractions
alongside the nations.
Each move carves
this tribe in half,
so that one hundred arrive
onto the newest allotment
of the thousand
who walked from Ohio.
—–
Some say an onion,
halved and burned
black over hardwood
then pressed
to the torso
will lift the wet rack
of consumption.
When the first spring breaks,
the survivors
wear a layered blister
straddling the hollow of their chests;
green corn sprouts slender.
