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".