They told us: 
bedtime stories 
are important 
for children to dream 
happily. 

So, I dreamed: 
cold                 iron rust                  nausea
           the swelling current 
and I grasped 
at chains of ancestry 
but they 
decayed         perished                   crumbled
in my crimsoned hands. 

My blood was 
lighter 
than the water 
around me— 
            my dreams were not. 

The river 
enclosed 
my                   throat, 
my                   windpipe, 
           putrescent 
birds of paradise 
           smothering 
me as they watched— 
I sank 
           beneath the surface, 
next to my 215* brothers and sisters. 

They watched us rise 
to the top in a lotus 
painted in feathers 
and stripes and stars, 
our rebirth, 
a putrid celebration.

*The number of indigenous children found buried at an unmarked, mass grave at a former residential school in Canada.