The Project

by Erin Marie Lynch

From the claim I lay to those no longer with me – 

From the desktop folder to which I drag another .jpeg, another .mov – 

From syllables kept under the tongue – 

From boiled eggs, dry chicken, unsalted greens – 

From the taste that lingers when the meal is gone – 

From the day I learn an uncle had spoken Dakota – 

From telling my mother, who replied I never knew – 

From waking into sudden ringing silence on my  

30th birthday, in another new home, in  

another new state – 

From punctuation to punctuation – 

From dandelions I joined into a circle when I was

younger – 

From this uncle, who died with no one to speak to – 

From his grandmother, buried in Standing Rock – 

From the .jpeg of her headstone, carved with her  

name, Elisabeth, and the years of her life – 

From the absence I felt inside night after night,

stomach walls collapsing – 

From the hunger in my body, surging toward  

a love over whom I no longer held claim – 

From stamen to root – 

From the prairies of the homeland, where Elisabeth

lived when she was younger – 

From settlers who claimed that land for statehood – 

From the eaves of my new home, where a pair  

of pigeons perched, encroaching – 

From a video of the two of us I couldn’t bring  

myself to delete, in which I was smiling – 

From lo even the briefest joining of earthly things – 

From the dandelion seeds settlers scattered across  

the continent to make it look like home – 

From the English language, and its shifting definitions,

and its rule of law – 

From 1862 – 

From Hungry men will help themselves, said a chief, 

declaring war – 

From that war – 

From the exiled survivors, including Elisabeth – 

From the smell after uprooting a dandelion, 

and the stains – 

From all my mother never knew – 

From how could she have known, when no-longer-

knowing is the State’s ongoing project – 

From the baby, according to a Dakota telling,  

snatched from its mother and dashed  

to the ground – 

From official histories that claim there were  

few deaths along the march – 

From these few, each with a name their family knew – 

From the passive voice – 

From the dash, which elides – 

From the edible dandelion, a slightly bitter green,  

with waxy milk running through – 

From the long no longer – 

From stems uprising between us – 

To this I come