From “Shadow Poems”

The people believed in a future
        with her face—
                                Concealed
                   her seeds
                           stars’ dull hatchets
                   behind the black bark of the moon
        and the whole forest grew
                             when they uttered
the ancestors’ old notion
          that those who have been buried
                   with a little honey
          after marshaling a mournful sound
                              thrown in circular waves to the west
can appropriate similar words
          for Creek, like        
                              Rattle-wing
                    the flower which expresses the fruit.

Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Foerster. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 28, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.