A Bitter Wind a bitter wind whisks away bodies upon bodies where do they go? Girl Woman Two-spirit the remains of 215 children buried in an unmarked grave at Kamloops Indian Residential School one appears to be a child who died as young as 3 Chief Casimir says the bodies found so far appeared to be buried in separate “unmarked burial sites that are, to our knowledge, also undocumented.” 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls in 2016 2,306 missing Native American women and girls in the U.S. in 2020 the U.S Department of Justice only reports 228 cases in 2021 nearly 60 percent of the cases are homicides 31 percent involve girls 18 and younger I remember age 17 young brown girl walking alone Highway 29 Pomo reservation a middle-aged man his dirty-white pickup truck I could have been one of the missing not one woman-identified Native is safe from this this is no bitter wind only sharp human action acerbic, forthright stealing souls in the night or shamelessly in the blinding daylight are their spirits in anyone’s thoughts? I burn sage and copal imagine their spirits lifting up in the smoke settling into the corners of a safe haven no red violence smeared across their faces no last breaths taken
