1.
verbs populate
Indigenous languages
Everything
animate sovereign
English is a language of nouns.
Most every thing
inanimate unsovereign
to be acted upon
by a shallow pool of
verbs
Indigenous
children were abducted
from their families
imprisoned
in boarding schools
beaten bleached and baptized
into white names raped
to match the white
Jesus they were
to worship
their hair cut like Samson's
their mouths scoured
when they wept
in their native tongues
the gibberish of savages
needing salvation
I have been to churches
where they spoke
in tongues
eyes closed,
pale faces
beatific
It was the Indigenous
come to possess
the descendants of
boarding school teachers
for their pious work
choking children
beatific
2. I spoke in tongues
one religious fall
on the heels
of a sinful summer
though he could not
interpret my utterings
gibberish
if you listened
long enough
the pastor vetted
my glossolalia
in the land of brown Jesus
during an ancient century
invaders severed
my people's
Indigenous tongue
their language
rough dungarees
that scoured our soft bodies
stiff boots that blistered
our mouths until
their pious gibberish
became our glossolalia
eventually I ran
out of faith
left piety
by the side
of the road
when language possess you
what happens to animacy?
what happens to sovereignty?
3.
When.
