Paige Kujan’s Reviews > Native Guard: Poems > Status Update

“When men die, we eat their share of hardtack / trying not to recall their hollow sockets, / the worm-stitch of their cheeks. Today we buried / the last of our dead from Pascagoula, / and those who died retreating to our ship — / white sailors in blue firing upon us / as if we were the enemy.” Whatever you’re doing, stop and look up Native Guard the poem.

“I can see her / listening to shells explode, writing herself / into history, asking what is to become / of all the living things in this place? / The whole city is a grave.”

“In my dream, / the ghost of history lies down beside me, / rolls over, pins me beneath a heavy arm.”

Pilgrimage is incredible