The time has come around again.
The blood in their vats is bubbling again.

The vats were hidden for a time
and are no longer.  
People don’t care. They 
call that plopping death
burble music. Toss in a child
and let it boil, toss in an elder
and watch it overflow.
This is how they make 
treaty ink: render
future and past and sign with
the broth from the stew.

The time has come around again.
The stereotypes make it feel like fall again.

Hang the prettiest artifacts
back on the wall.
The dried scalps, the tobacco sacks
made of scrotums. Do that
honorific horror, that
tomahawk chop. Sling your
DNA tests. Hang your
jerseys on the movie reel corpses.

The time has come around again.
The wolf T-shirts have been put away again. 

There is only one wolf
inside some of them.
It bites. There are two wolves
inside others. One bites,
the other howls. Some of them
claim half a wolf, others say
there’s one half buried
two grandmothers deep 
in their back closet. The one
that sticks the farthest
out of their ribs
is the one they feed.
If they house a couple
one is always starved.

The time has come around again.
The bloodiest holidays are here again. 

One for love of the instigator
of all that has happened. One for
the feast of loving the smell. 
In between is the one
for honoring the dead.
Look at all we have to honor.
Look at all that has come and gone.
Listen to what’s brewing
in the treaty vats. See how far
we’ve not yet come.