Totem

Totem

Spirit eater

White waltzer

secret inside my skin

snailcurled in snowdrift

sleeping, black lips closed over

teeth big as carrots, dark poppy pod eyes

shut, REM flutter stilled

silent as the melting flake;

in dreams you

come to eat the gold yolk

from the half-egg moon called

winter’s sun.

Wake

when the hunter comes

lift up your chainsaw paws and

show your ivory yellow teeth

scrimshawed and snagged by

the obduracy of your kills;
shake 
his bones from your throat
with a growl.

Ice orphan, 
White diver

            my only protection now.           

All arctic summer you sidled closer

in your need, your frost breath

following me across another country.

All summer you harvested

the sleek black bodies

of grief, turning the ice

salty red with your patience;

only the fleetest fled unfurrowed, 

melting a path to

 that stonecold 
immeasurable abyss.

When the dark time came 

and there was 
nowhere else, you wooed me

 with garnets and alabaster freshcut from all 
the sorrows' spawn you'd slain

 for me. 
So I gave you

sleep in the black heartcave

content to barter away all

yesterday’s skins

for the talisman necklace

of your ebony claws.

January 2011

Posted for   Fireblossom Friday   at real toads

Header image: Post card. Bear totem on grave. Ketchikan, Alaska.

Source: US National Archives, series: Photographs of the Inhabitants of Metlakatla, British Columbia and Metlakatla, Alaska, compiled ca. 1856 - 1936
Public Domain via wikimedia commons