 So I'm sure everybody's noticed the smoke in the air today. This is from the last fire, but it might as well be this one. White car through the latest apocalypse. Unmoored thoughts. Tree prayers wild in the tearing air over the valley. Ridge running evidence of the latest devastation. Barkless pines. Silver spasmed branches curling roads like contractions follow the creeks. These rocks are paws. Expectant tumble on the shoulder, hill language. Arched backs scaled with meta sequoia, coil and roll. Tucked deep in the net orchards down by the soft running river water. Cornfields dry as screaming. Sunflowers parched dark in the dance. Now I'm actually going to read a few of my missing and murdered poems. I don't know how long they're going to last, because I couldn't ever catch up if I did them forever. And it's pick your practice, because it affects you on a really cellular level. Day one, somewhere she's afraid right now. It hurts to be strangled. The body panics. She is silenced. Might die of stroke, pulmonary edema. The arteries may tear. Her head feels as if it might explode. And this can take up to five minutes. Day two, blamed for her own death, bled out in a motel bathtub. In court, the defendant's attorney made hers inhuman as possible, but brought excised body parts into the courtroom. Her lifestyle, her identity at fault, as if the murder were a logical conclusion, as if her attacker had no choice, as if we are all provocation and skin. Another acceptable sacrifice. Day three, shot, dead named, misgendered. Even the way they looked for you was a violence. Each detail a complex inaccuracy, targeted as acceptable loss. You are loved now in your own name. We see you. Day four, you are our leading cause of death, vanished. I can feel myself going transparent. The car her daughter was last seen in was found in the lake, her child's dead body inside. Who has jurisdiction? The local police, reservation police, the FBI. We don't know if there was a crime. We don't know if there was a white person involved. In the city, when she didn't come home, I called the police and it was three days before they came to the house. Her disappearance was a choice. Should not be hitchhiking. To afford a car, we need to work. There's no work in town. There's no public transit. She was last seen standing by Highway 16 in the rain. So fortunately that's it for that. There are whole communities of native women in which everyone has been raped. We are more than two and a half times likely to be killed or kidnapped. Just hold on to that one for a moment. And then this. Gently gather your strength. Sing to the new vests we are making. Linked scales of our former selves. Scraps of outgrown shells lined with perfectly imagined kisses from every hero we never met. Folded tightly. Wedged into the cracks. Wear all of the freely given gifts. Wear them openly. Scratch a mark for each day on the wall. Tie a knot for every success. Breakfast with ravens. Send each amulet with their parables. Join me at dawn. Wear comfortable shoes. This is going to take a while. Thank you so much for joining us.