Report (1)
        Hide me in your quiver
        —Isaiah 49:2

It moved inside us,
the old story before the story,
a remembrance of memory,
a fleeing too hard to forget.

In the primitive landscape
bushes became wolves
and the wolves wrote the government reports.
They strung our hunting grounds with their words,
leaving a trail we followed.

Once our stories were round
but the wolves made them square as houses.

Bite off the corners of their books
until they are round as pie plates
on the counter in the crowded café.

The wolves kept up their reports—
betrayal—
betrayal—
on the shelving and window sash.
Their reportage only made what happened
happen again on paper,
a map-work still legible as rock drawings.

I tell you they occupied the land
leaving us to this day
their bookshelves and cabinetry.

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Copyright © 2015 Diane Glancy All rights reserved
from Report to the Department of the Interior
University of New Mexico Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission