Rally at the Capital
Bismarck, ND
Camp bursts from busses, vans, opens like an agate
on the state-sponsored lawn. Uniform
and over-mowed blades obscured now by the flash
of jingle dresses, jewel-toned I Stand with Standing Rock
tees. Water is Life signs float like sails,
let us believe our collective bodies could be
a boat. Ricardo shares a sketch, a small girl
placing a flower in the gaping throat
of a gun; the ends of Red Fawn’s ribbon skirt
flutter like the cobalt butterflies back at camp;
and everyone chants Protect the Sacred, Protect
the Sacred. We round dance, rise and fall like one
set of lungs. Our skyward fists are a release
of balloons. And none of this requires
the rows of National Guard men swaddled
in riot gear, matched and ill-fitting pants.
I lay on the grass beside a huddle
of quiet kids. RJ asks why there are so many
cops, so many guns, when nobody has done
anything violent? Halle says, they want us
to start getting afraid. The monolith
of men shadow us like the brutalist
building they line up before.
The obligatory blankness in their faces
blurring and disappearing the bowed
lips, birthmarks, moles, the small
asymmetries their lovers must think of at night.
Copyright © 2025 Teresa Dzieglewicz. From Something Small of How to See a River (Tupelo Press, 2025). Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Tupelo Press.