Smuggling Cherokee
1.
I unroll my map
And a photocopy
Of the palm of my left hand,
Weigh down the corners with
A fist sized chunk of peach colored flint, a
Barite rose
Some gypsum and
A piece of ruby jack
Then set in to work.
2.
There is a certain art
To a good mistranslation.
3.
I remember rage and impatient violence.
These days
I’m more likely
To pile river rocks in the bathtub
For love of smooth things
Things as edgeless as I can have them.
4.
The man asks me
“Do you speak Cherokee”
But it’s all I ever speak
The end goal of several generations of a
Smuggling project.
We’ve slipped the barriers
Evaded border guards.
I smile,
“Always.”
From Smuggling Cherokee (Greenfield Review Press, 2006). Copyright © 2006 by Kim Shuck. Used with the permission of the author.
Kim Shuck
Kim Shuck was born in San Francisco and is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She received a BA in art and an MFA in textiles from San Francisco State University.
Shuck is the author of the poetry collections Deer Trails (City Lights Books, 2019); Clouds Running In (Taurean Horn Press, 2014); Rabbit Stories (Poetic Matrix Press, 2013); and Smuggling Cherokee (Greenfield Review Press, 2005).