Blue Moon Medicine
After Louise Erdrich, “Love Medicine”
written by: Dusk Butterfly
The ache in my chest wakes me from my dream
A Super Blue Moon approaches and
I pick up the book to search for a Love Medicine
I’m alone and ill and I put myself here.
Long black necks with a mask, they
Stride upstream with their flock:
Canadian geese. They are big birds
With a small kill zone and the book says
They mate for life. Their powdery
Feathers warm their young who they
Care for, for nine whole moons through the
Winter with their mate. They’re parents.
The medicine in the book calls for
Something dark and dangerous. To eat the
Hearts. In the book, the character did not
Do it properly. Her love was not secured.
I think I am a perfectionist & suddenly
The hunt is in my mind. The way I would carry
Limp bodies to defeat her, to carve,
How I would drain the blood & how
My stomach would twist and churn.
I would whisper to the birds my deep
Gratitude. They give me hope. I have
Everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Raw is the best way to take it, the male
heart for the male and the female heart
For me. I wonder about the size and texture.
If there is a point in seasoning it.
What an idea. I crouch with a new gun
Waiting by the river bank to spy a
Family waddling. At the first blaring call
And sight of kind eyes I start to laugh out
Until tears drizzle down the rock I’m
Hiding under. The sky opens itself to a
Baby Blue and I am giggling at the
Wispy clouds that tell me straightforwardly
That I’m holding the gun all wrong
And I’m looking for the wrong medicine!
- Blue Moon Medicine - February 18, 2024
- Clues - October 5, 2023
