by Lesley Belleau
Gaagi Biingwe
The small steps, overlooked
Like they were made from
Paper silences
Our screaming
The brick walls
Silty at the edge of our
Footmarkings
When-we-sang-the-trees-bent-over-praying
But nobody heard
Until the creasings
Turned into long hard
Earthsplits
Quaking our whole voices
As fast and efficient as morning
Gagii biingwe.
The whole night ate
Our silence
While Canada prepared their speeches
Our silence
The night chewing them
An offering to
The piles of treaties
The edges falling into long rivers, swallowed
Published online July 18, 2013
Lesley Belleau is an Anishnaabekwe writer from the Ojibwe nation of Ketegaunseebee Garden River First Nation, located outside of Bawating/Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She is a PhD student in the Indigenous Studies Department at Trent University in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Ontario), studying Indigenous feminine literature and narrative retrieval. Currently she teaches Indigenous Literature at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie. Lesley is the author of The Colour of Dried Bones, a collection of short fiction published by Kegedonce Press, as well as other poetic, fictional, academic and blog publications both nationally and internationally. Lesley’s second book, Sweat, a full-length novel, will be launched in September, 2013. Lesley resides with her four young children.
