Mother

TUTUSSAQ STAUFFER

from day one, i loved you. i showed you how to take the greens, how to pack the ice, how to pick the berries and cut the fish.

there, there. make sure to sever the meat, from the bones.

i loved you from day two. when i showed you how to cut the seal skin, stitch it together, and make clothes, so that you would survive.

aa, it’s so cold. do we have, anything to eat?

i loved you from day three. when you started to forget, the reasons for the ceremonies, the reasons for the masks, the reasons i love you. mama says that, i need to forget who you are. i don’t want to,

then don’t,

but they’ll cut out my tongue if i don’t, and bleed me dry in the sun, like the caribou. you forgot me now, but i have always loved you, and never will i stop. from day one, i loved you.

i just wish that i loved you, too.

Tutussaq Stauffer is an Indigenous poet and author. She likes to write about being a member of the LGBT community and also about her Yup’ik heritage.