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River Pruitt
Two Poems
Nanih Waiya
I’m trying to remember the way Mississippi smells
salted earth
ancient dust
the sweetness of cane swimming through the breeze
trying to remember where we were
before called to this
place
can emptiness be festering
underneath the red dirt
quiet rising
breathe deeply
silt and clay fills my lungs
takes up my body
beside me lay
stone and bones, mixed
into the ether un
formed
the cracks
come from underneath
and out from it
the flood
of ants
where grasshoppers should be
Original woodblock print by the author.
for amberlie
there is a small willow tree
on my block
she grows on the shoreline
of a wide river,
roots desiring
a sensation;
the wet
touch
of earth
deep where she is settled
back bending towards the
water, limbs
reaching down
to meet
with the surface—
breaking the tension
with a kiss
and the lightest touch
tracing the edges
making small ripples
with each
movement
her nimble branches,
shifting with the slightest
of the wind’s
breath,
sway rhythmically
a tune flitting through
the same way
warblers
dance through
the flowering buds
to catch their soft
Release
the river’s waters catch
all else that
falls from
the breathing in—
through
her body
and in
but a moment
a piece
is
carried
down stream
River Pruitt (they/them) is a trans Indigiqueer Chahta settler on Kanaka Maoli lands as a PhD student in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, beadworker, artist, and language learner. They are interested in radical Indigiqueer futures, resurgence, and their two very cute (but annoying) cats.
