Simple Mathematics

You

steal
feather, deity,
lineage, land;  
make up
a predecessor’s name,
a bloody
joke, a gross mascot, a 
pretty trinket trend.

We don’t need 
those definitions,
you know.

We don’t need you
to reform and relax
and lean into
understanding,
you know.

What we need,
what you need, is
simple mathematics: 

your five hundred years
are still
far less than 
our eons and 
once they’ve been
thoroughly subtracted, 

we shall not even notice.

The land will recall you
for a little while and
we might recall a bit
longer

but we’ve always known
what was ours and what
you took and what 
you called it and what
its true name
has always remained.

We don’t need you
to get it clear before

you are
dismissed. Before
we turn the paper

to the 
blank side and
start over.