1763: a trans homeland, a two-spirit homeland — ᒣᑲᑌᐱᓀᓯᑴ
fuck your gay island, mine
has only ever been the one,
the turtle, a microcosm
in dispossession—of land
and pox/poz body, where my mind
strays like a rez dog but
there’s no rez for us
except an island made
of sweet sweet betrayal
bodied water lapping waves
against the shore, transition
zone—rapids are to trans as
locks are to cis, but this poem
is not for reclamation, is not
about ancestors or tradition or
any unbroken fishing line of
two-spirit validity, no:
if this poem were a land
acknowledgement, it would be
the kind that spits in your face
“fuck your gay island, mine
has only ever been the one”
until the mc gets off his
ass to calm the crowd, gets
off on the cis colonizer cries
while in the back of the room
nishnaabe trans girls smuggle
rifles under their skirts, their nishnaabe trans
brothers carefully, carefreely tossing the ball
over the gates, the crowd
going wild,
the turtle
coming alive.
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Mekadebinesikwe (Kai Minosh Pyle) is a 2spirit descendant of the Nishnaabeg who ambushed and captured the British fort of Michilimackinac in a 1763 game of lacrosse. They currently live on the Dakota people’s homelands in occupied Bde Ota Othunwe.