Elise Paschen


From Heritage of the Blood Wolf Moon


IV

The star, blazing on the stage
of the firmament, the brightest of stars,
Sirius, the Dog Star,
flashy shiner in the constellation
Canis Major. Named The Trickster
by the Pawnee or The Coyote Star.
The Osage said The Wolf that Hangs by the Side
 of Heaven Star, alone, compact, content
to howl louder than any other.
One night I heard the wolves
                                                                        inside their makeshift enclosure,       
yowling back to the sirens.
Our two dogs strained
on the leash. The caterwauling
of wolves carried by wind
across blocks of tree-thick
streets. The rough blasts in this city.
The maelstroms on that lupine
island when I couldn’t
hear my voice shout,
warning our children.
From Pawhuska to Fairfax—
                                                                                    driving in Oklahoma—
how brash, the wind.    

                                   

 

V

How brash the wind
on Highway 60 that powers
colossal creatures stalking
                                                            the landscape. Some call the wind turbines
eye sores, others miss the silhouettes
of oil derricks. I have read
the Osage never owned their own
oil companies, leasing the land
                        to others—Phillips Petroleum,
Standard. Fortunes amassed.
Because of headrights from that mineral
underground, her father,
my mother said, never worked
a day in his life—cruising the golf courses,
tracking pheasant. Her Scotts Irish
mother pushed to move
their young family away from the oil
             boom town riddled with crime.
                                                                 In their maroon Pierce-
Arrow my grandparents drove across
the country, settling in Beverly Hills.
                                           Every day my grandmother shepherded
the girls to ballet class. In grammar school
                                                                                children chased the two sisters
                        down hallways, whooped war cries,
demanding to see their feathers.
Is your last name ‘Tall’
                                                            or ‘Chief’? The Osage
girls were bullied
because of their last name.

Elise Paschen is the author of The Nightlife (named one of the top poetry books of 2017 by the Chicago Review of Books), Bestiary, Infidelities (winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize), and Houses: Coasts. She is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. Her poems have been published widely, including Poetry Magazine, A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and The Best American Poetry 2018. She has edited numerous anthologies, including The Eloquent Poem. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022