Dark birds
Empty fields
We left the eastern horizon
Shimmering behind us
And must invent a reason
To explain why all this
Has happened
Pills don't help
Dreams don't help
They no longer come
I watched Will Rogers
In the Modjeska
On South KK
Kinnickinnic Ave
What could that word mean
We got here so late
And we remember nothing
Names ring out
Fade and recede
Kinnickinnic
Kickapoo
Kenosha
Kaukana
We grew up
Playing in fields
Of disappearance
Massacres forts
Running past hitching posts
Walls topped
With shards of glass
Invisible lines
Drawn they say
By a distant god
In a distant garden
And bequeathed
To whites
The angle streets
Of this city
Milwaukee Clark Elston
Are Indian trails they say
How can we forget
What we never knew
But we know
Kinnickinnic means
That which is mixed
Tobacco with
The inner bark
Of willow
Or dogwood
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