by Billy Ray Belcourt
it is september 2009 and health canada sends body bags to god’s river first nation—a community hit hard by swine flu
a body bag
is a gun
is a smallpox blanket
is a treaty
—call it a medicine chest
wait for
the autopsy
they call it H1N1
you call it
the pass system:
bodies like
these can
only leave if
they’re on
stretchers
—call it “moving”
someone says
remind them
that canada is
four hundred
afghanistans
—call it colonialism
to live in
trenches like these
is to be
civilian casualty
and soldier all at once
—call it “a suicide epidemic”
wonder
how many deaths
it takes for a
country to
call itself
god
think maybe
reserve is
another word
for morgue
is another word
for body bags
—call it home anyways
Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar-elect and is completing a BA (Hons.) in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta. He blogs and writes poetry at nakinisowin.wordpress.com.