Adopted

She collects wanderers like pocket change
Different state quarters that she can use for games of pool
Racking introductions from strangers that will ask
Where
Are
You
From?
And she’ll giggle and shy her eyes away
Because their question is so silly
And at that one moment
They know
Oh what have you done to them, sweet child?
They trace your bloodlines like tree roots
And long to lay at your breast
Hoping that tenderness will leak
Knowledge or milk or sap or salve
To cover windburns from walking along hilltops
That they do not know
Oh what have you done to them, sweet child?
They stroke your arms to contrast your skin against theirs
And kiss your hands to suck sweet pigment
You taste like a well worn bark
Where they can scribble their notes for safekeeping
Because they forgot how to remember
Oh what have you done to them, sweet child?
They stare at the looseness of your hair
Imagining fingers of wind running through
Little do they know that the wind knew your name
Before you were born
But they do know that you are not easily blown over
Oh sweet child, let them be!
They inhale when you flutter your eyes down
Hoping for an eyelash on their lips
So they can finally kiss something of this land
But from worlds ago
Yes, sweet child, you are worlds old
And only slightly less of a wanderer than they
They, they have oceans to cross
But you, dear, are of clay
Red clay from a river bank at Tunkasila’s side
Oh sweet child, let them be!
They will not help you find your umbilical cord
By discovering you
Oh sweet child, you already know what you look like
And their flatteries will never compare
To the clay that build you
To the mother that fired you in her womb
And had to kiss you goodbye with stained lips
Oh sweet child, let them be!
When they ask you where you are from
Because you do not yet know
From which well you draw your tears

Comments: I met a girl in New Orleans once who looked native. I asked her if she was native and she said yes, but doesn’t know what tribe. Her parents were adopted, then she was adopted, and now she’s spent her life trying to find a place to call home. I didn’t have the heart to tell her who she looked like, or where I thought she was from. Did I do her wrong?