If I Were Louise Erdrich

This poem would be a rattlesnake
instead of a souvenir rattle.
It would shape shift, an Ojibwe
just sprung from jail, quiet
and not in a good way,
thick braids loosening in the prairie wind.
Grandmas would gather in the kitchen
over sheet cake and sausages.
Crappies would be fished, muskrat hunted,
the egg and butter money
hidden beneath the floorboards,
a coffee can of sand for butts,
a feral smell of musk and honey.

But I am not Louise Erdrich
and I shouldn’t pretend to be
even in an oblique way.
This poem is mine, so it sputters and farts,
thumbs marbles across the floor.
If it shifts shape, it does so ironically,
afraid to commit to these final words:
a monkey with a Pez dispenser
or a trout reflecting the colors
through the surface of the river
or maybe a ghost in the willows
whispering the names of the departed
one after the other.

Edward Johnson is a civil rights attorney who has spent the past 30 years representing people living on and over the edge of homelessness. He is now living full-time in a cabin in the North Cascades, working on poems, old and new. He has work recently published or forthcoming from: Eclectica Magazine, Down in the Dirt, Beatnik Cowboy, Indefinite Space, Main Street Rag, Ginosko Literary Journal and Packingtown Review.

Featured image by Vern Skaug, sourced from the North Dakota Office of the Governor