Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker

Author:M. L. Smoker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: poetry, native american, montana, native american poetry
Publisher: Hanging Loose Press

Down to This

Venom

We are the kids outside the bingo hall. My brother is inside calling the numbers as they show their faces on the fluorescent Ping-Pong balls, my mother helps to serve Indian tacos to all the old people, my auntie plays with three cards and her own fierce luck that makes people wonder. We are all outside in June, charged by mosquitoes who aim for the spots we can’t see—behind kneecaps, in the parts of our dark hair, on the edges of ear bone. We forget all about our boredom, the blood, and the bites when one of our cousins yells he’s found a rattlesnake in the tall grasses around the corner. We all run to see it, to hear it, to get close enough to tell stories about it later in the summer. One of the older boys gathers his young courage and moves toward it with a stick. He realizes before the rest of us

that all it is is the long shredded skin of a rattler that has moved on, probably down toward the river. He picks the discarded shell up with his knobby birch stick and then throws it high into the air. We all run and scream, afraid of poisons and pain. We cannot say enough about the poisons and pain.

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