While My Blood Runs Pink—I Am Always a River

Poetry by Judy Mathews

It holds two worlds—White and Indigenous

opposing each other—unblending—

to the contrary, red and white have mixed;

call me a “blood”, call me a “mixed blood”,

call me a pink river       

spinning out of ebb and flow;

rocks, seeming themselves

round and smooth,

but my waters eddy—swirling

displacement

pink river at dusk blends

within its surroundings—

a chameleon—like in a

place of dreamtime—

no horizon line exists,

my truth runs true, here;

Perfectly blended and balanced

Flipside of dusk—dawn

breaks—has broken—in it. . .

One of those rocks, blood quantum,

loosens, tumbles, river churns

swirling     overflowing banks

(Societal containers)

—rain clouds rushing in;

dirty pink water, mud surfaces

reminders of purity—impurity

purities—impurities

bubbling frustration—phases of

acceptance

non-acceptance (more rocks)

Pink river, my river,

whitecaps crash in on themselves

eroding banks—

tumbling

       tumbling

tumbling

        to pieces (only)

        fizzles back

into its banks

eddies calm—less rocks,

gentled, sloping banks

blending molecules

learning the pink rudiments

of my river.

(dawn—day—settled into evening)

BIO: Judy Mathews received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Spalding University in their Master of Fine Arts in writing program. Her writing has appeared in, Wild Roof Journal, The Round Table Literary Journal, and a recent Pushcart Prize nomination for a poem published in The Round Table Literary Journal, The Badlands: Winter 2019, The Avalon Literary Journal. (and soon to be in The Belt and The Santa Clara Review). Judy is an online adjunct English instructor for Hopkinsville Community College. She is currently working on a collection of poems focusing on local natural places, and a novel inspired by four generations of strong women in her family and how family stories are interconnected to place.