Treaty Written in the Body

David Anson Lee

On the plains, sound travels far.
Mercy does not.

Wind braids grass into sentences
the government never learned to read.
My uncle signs with hands
scarred by fences
that were never ours.

A clinic form says disabled
as if the land isn’t deaf
to petition,
as if history hasn’t been
lip-reading its lies for centuries.

At the clinic, they test my ears.
On the map, a red-lined boundary
tests our patience.
The verdict is familiar:
noncompliant, underserved,
statistically negligible.

I stand near the drum circle,
feel rhythm enter the chest
before the ear.
The beat knows me.
It does not ask for proof.

We translate to survive:
pulse into step,
anger into ceremony,
loss into something
the spine can carry.