Collage by Jason Hannan
On cusp dusky twilight, periwinkle wide - breaching highest cotton edge, our souls touched.

Tasked selling the Epic Triathloniversary, 45th & not in merchandise mood. I hadn’t been since the indigenous occupants’ diffusing back to their land after stand together.

I heard the Muscogee hymn from Trail of Tears throughout the moon phases & couldn’t cease it. Rattled me like birth.

Nak O’mvl-kv-ha-hi-cv-tet 
{He has created all things}

Souix, Creek . . .

Showing tribes’ colors, so many. So bright.

Every 1 m’visitors welcomed, or imposed, must see the prison island.

Up, down, within.

Touring guests to hellspot where once dwelled 3 escapees* / prospective free men? As an empath, this stage so gruesome be.

He-sa-ke-tv 
{God lives}

Pomo, Paiute . . .

Split my neck as the stench of Diambiguites met us as we docked at the guard gate. Ahoy! Triathalon to Alcataz featured the not usual tests:

Running, Swimming, Cycling.

Was I mad?

These ferry tickets to jail mountain, spent from her purse. I infer to align her self-righteous ° self gratification ° of the sort typical of rich white women her age.

She’ll pay smiling sighing out a term mistaken & waaay off.

Or going so.

“You’ve only been off the streets a few months.” Smirking her eyes narrowheaded. Missing the target.

“18,” I say.
Insisting then she’d treat me until, 
“You find a job.”
‘12 months’, I know but do not say.

Macabre nostalgia consumes my spirit each time, horror as I see the sillouttes - painted weapon-shaped, behind the cooking weapons. Each meant to show unhung. Missing.

Deadly.

“Ooooh. That big, fat, squareish one!”, cooed loudly pointing towards them.

“That would do the trick!”, echoing even through solitary’s walls.

‘She may have well be a Chef in this kitchen’, I thought. ‘Prep meaty snacks for the ghosts & the forces who don’t forgive.’

“Clever,” I sighed.

Em pen-ka-lit, Me-kus-sa-pis 
{I pray with fear of respect}

Mono, Navajo . . .

I had’ve been the one to prance with in-law. Felt trapped, as she revelled in the men having freedom withheldback in mountain-heavy rates.

: Sharin, it seems, enjoys the highest stakes of ill favor.

Running, Swimming, Cycling . . .

& The Legends 3!

*[likely hitched the ferry back on the stress of guards - the ratted seacraft to throw the scent of the hunted]

Cv Cuk-wvm es A’kv-sa-mis
{I glorify him with my mouth}

Not swimming, but chanting : a song with no backstrokes, from salt sky - not to beat the highest score, must’stay on course on very nature’s flow.

Em V’ha-kv pu-mva-yat 
{He gives us his teaching}

Stark seeing all water parts the same, whether at peak or base flat’ed on skigees.

Nak hot-cen hah-yet pu ‘mv-tes 
{He gives us what is in writing}

& saw the truth - 2 oxygen + 1 Hydrogen, if each we all - equal.

Not Running, but hunting. The styled grease on warrior’s arm vibrating a songstring to pull back, aim at the devil’s eye - chanting song of mercy.

Mohawk , Chippewah . . .

Mv-ha-kv Me-hen-wut o’mes 
{His teachings are the truth}

Not cycling, but praying at a rhythm of harmony. Sharin wasted her meal & I lost mine as they airlifted me out. I had looked again at ‘weapon’ wall & blacked out.

Black Foot . . . bare.

Cv-fe-ken es A’kv-sa-mis
{I glorify him with my heart}

Sight flooded with thousand arrow silhouettes of all tribes.

As looked below, rock growing small to dim, I winced unheard - “treaty is no thing to make but with God.”