Passing

By Brinton Gould

Do I not embody a contradiction?
Allow me to explain the ways I
Get lost in this maze of haze and
Questions

My skin is brown and tanned to match
My jet-black hair of considerable
Length and yes it sucks to wash it
And tie it and toss it and dry it
But it’s my own

But these signifiers are outliers for
How I was raised. half of me and
Thus all of me
Shadowed

Métis is what I am and it means a
Mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous
Inquisitive for the insidious who point and say

“You’re not Native”
And to that I say
“Maybe you’re right”

I say maybe the man

Who goes to church away from
Trees of birch to hear the words
That caused much hurt
Is not Indigenous

I say maybe the man

Who was raised by a
Eurocentric
Independent loving
Mother, who is seen as too white
In skin tone to atone to those who
Believe that looks come first,
Is not Indigenous

I say maybe the man

That lives in a tower of
Concrete and power with
Hours to devour the beauty
Of the land but sticks to the
Streets and the sheets on his
Bed is not Indigenous

No, he just looks it

Maybe I am. maybe I’m not. I guess I’ll
Know when this depressive oppressive
Mess of a state tells me so.

Thank God