Building a Nest from the Bones of My People

By Cara-Lyn Morgan

Motherhood, trauma, and familial history are woven together into a powerful collection from the award-winning author of What Became My Grieving Ceremony.

Beginning with a revelation of familial sexual abuse, Building a Nest from the Bones of My People charts the impact of this revelation on the speaker. From the pain of estrangement to navigating first-time motherhood in the midst of a family crisis, Morgan explores the complexities of generational and secondary abuse, intertwined as they are with the impacts of colonization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Invisible Publishing
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778430312

Cara-Lyn Morgan

Cara-Lyn Morgan comes from both Indigenous (Métis) and Immigrant (Trinidadian) roots in the place known as Turtle Island and Canada. She was born in Oskana, known now as Regina, Saskatchewan, and lives, works, and gardens, in the traditional territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and Mississaugas of the Credit peoples. Her debut collection of poetry What Became My Grieving Ceremony won the 2015 Fred Cogswell Award for Poetic Excellence. Her second collection Cartograph explores healing, cultural duality, and colonization. Find out more at www.cara-lynmorgan.com.

Book preview

Words, scattered

dustbowls on this wide

and acred place. Innocence,

pureté, famille,

foi. Every night, I pluck

red and black feathers

from my wings until

I am flightless

and cold.

I dreamed

I tongued the ridge

of my gums and found my teeth

had fallen out, nested in

layers of star thistle,

poplar fluff

at the base of the gravel pit

we played in as girls. I found and

flattened them

on the railway line, cast

along the tracks to be pocketed

like pennies.

I dreamed I shed my fingernails

to their nervy beds, and spread

each along the fallow

so wildflowers

might spring up, bloody.

Loose

flutter of memory drifting

a voice through phone

and tequila,

touching memory

touching

twenty years separate us

yet           I remember

the ones we should not hug,

should never leave

with our children.

An uncle

gets drunk, tells

me he has known

both sides of this.

Later, calls me

an asshole.

I become the collector

of slurred and weeping

half-confessions,

fogged memories

touching memory

touching, denial.

They squat in

the back of my skull

I can’t remember

how to breathe

to sleep, to remember.

One by one: named.

One by one: silenced.

An aunt tells me

it’s something

that happens when you are a child

and you have to move on.

I am told

everyone should

just get over it. I am told

it’ll all work out.

The ruiners

breakers

of rules. unlinkers

a very old chain. My sisters and I

ask each other

what do you remember?

Lights at night.

Stairs creak.

A whisper?

Nothing.

We remember

nothing.

Tangled sweetgrass

I count 21 and snip close to the white

the hair of our Mother. I will braid

in groups of seven. Put tobacco

in the earth. My feet

have been planted in this prickled ground

far too long. I have ashed

my skin in it

like a heated cow. This male

thirst—folding

table, smoky