She lost her turquoise locket
in the basin when she was a child.
It drained into Red Lake,
her mother swore.

It takes ninety days
for one drop to drift
the length of the Mississippi-
a season of carrying loss
before the salt claims it.

She combs her heavy hair,
to unravel the hush of forgetting,
each strand a river-line pulled south
toward the gulf,
where Mishipeshu waits in the dark current-
copper scales burning, eyes cutting the water,
his breath the drag
that tears what we love
into the mud.

Her hair startles me,
snagged with **** and silt,
a sheet of drowned paper
staining her shoulders.

She still wakes with soreness
from phantom breastfeeding
after her son was lost to her.

She swims the river of memory,
arms open, finding him
for a moment-
his face flashing like minnows scattering.
Her hair glints with their voices,
the water breathing
against her skin.

Her chest folds in,
breath torn like wet paper,
hair knotted, damp
with the stench of river-mud.
Her fingers search the nape-
she curses the river’s lie.
Nothing answers,
only the undertow’s promise
already tugging at her feet.