Reservation Required by Emily Clarke

          Mayastar CC
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Reservation Required

in this version we are baby mamas
in this version we are disney pocahontas
in this version we are panhandling
on the corner of spirituality and alcoholism
we keep at least one long, loaded
shotgun in every plateless car
in this version we are not brown enough
and we are not white enough
our voices are replaced with the mechanical
cha-chings of neon slot machines
in this version we are k-mart Halloween costumes
a plastic coachella trend atop the sunburned
heads in which we have never once
been given a second thought
in this version we are the minority
of minorities we are the tokens
of academia whose names do not live
on any professors quick-to-dismiss tongue--

but i don’t want to be your edward curtis photograph
i don’t want to go down in history just
another specimen—a female body left to rot
like her ancestors regimen
so in my version we are static
we are sound and sinew woven together
by wrinkled, brown thumbs
in my version we are bone-white doves
we are scaled and goat-eyed
in my version we are people
we are standing side-by-side along earth’s backbone,
dancing to a song sung to us under the breath of the wind

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Emily Clarke is a Cahuilla Native American writer, activist, photographer, Zine artist, and Traditional Bird Dancer. Emily graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in May of 2018 with a certificate in Creative Writing and is now continuing her study of writing at University of California, Riverside. Emily’s work has been featured in News From Native California, Four Winds Literary Journal, and Hoot Review. She has been a featured reader at events such as Indigenous Now, And The Earth Was Shaken, and UCLA’s Environmentalists of Color Climate Justice Forum. Currently, Emily is writing poetry exploring modern Cahuilla identity, feminism, and human intimacy.

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