Andréa Ferrell Gannon
Andréa Ferrell Gannon, MFA, is a mother, a native Californian, and the daughter of an immigrant and Lakota father. She taught HS French and Spanish for years, then English to immigrants and refugees. Find her in The Washington Post, GRXL, Poet Lore, The Prose Poem, Cultural Daily, and Best of American Poetry.
Flyers in the Bathroom, Prairie Wind Casino, Pine Ridge Reservation, the State of South Dakota
According to ethnologists,
rape was never
a native tradition.
Are you a survivor?
Read the flyers taped in the stalls,
care number tabs
nearly all pulled—
a lone one missing
from those at the mirrors.
A mama hawks banana bread
in the casino parking lot,
children tracing letters
in the hood dust. Four hundred
orphaned iyeskas, not half-breeds,
mission-raised at once.
Red-palm slaps across
disappointed faces. Hotlines
tired of trying to heal
on your own? fridge magnets,
bumper stickers, local papers, billboards.
Sun-baked metal highway signs
stand, you are now
exiting or entering
Lakota Territory
bullet-hole riddled.
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Image by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels
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