My Partner Reads Gregory Scofield by Ashley Hynd

he pulls his teeth through the pages
clean of the blood spilt by the words
sorrow hanging in the corners of his
mouth; eyes are liars. I think we all knew
that when we first looked settlers there
still we gave them everything:

  the tea,
the furs,
the land,

fools in the folly of self like other,
no words for small-pox blankets

  or rapacity,

  only ceremony,

so, we gave them everything. so, they
pull their teeth through the pages
clean of the blood spilt by the words.
and I am with him,

  like treachery,
like treason,
like treaty,

two rows of purple against white.
each on their own path.
wondering
how the river
got so wide.
was it the tea
fur
land
giving way.

---

Ashley Hynd is a poet with mixed ancestry who lives on the Haldimand Tract and respects the Attawandron, Anishnawbe, and Haudenosaunee relationships with the land. Like many people with mixed heritage the knowledge of her history is unclear. According to the stories in her family they are of Anishnawbe, Cherokee and Metis decent. Her writing currently grapples with the erasure of her history and is as much an act of reclamation as it is a call of accountability for what has been lost.

She was a member of the first KWPS Slam Residency (2018), was shortlisted for Arc Poem of the Year (2017), won the Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize (2017) and was member of the  KWPS Poetry Slam Team (2015). Her poetry has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, Room Magazine, Prism International and is forthcoming in SubTerrain.

She has performed at a wide-range of events throughout Kitchener-Waterloo, including The Balderdash Reading Series (2018), Mysterious Barricades Suicide Prevention Concert (2017), Open Ears Arts Festival (2017) and Latitudes Storytelling Festival (2015).

Her Hobbies Include trampling the patriarchy, avoiding doing the dishes and getting lost in conversations.

Follow Ashley on twitter @ashley_hynd and facebook and check out her website: mabuntupoetry.wordpress.com