Fugal

A shriek, dawn-like, birdless—an ordained
stratum—pulsing canticle of the numen. 

The chant coarsely flung at the bosky ridges 
of shattered clavicle—skull doused in lacquer. 

Hear into the negative of bone the annals of a hut,
lamina of guttural gowk. 
                                        Fluted brinks of obsidian 
cloaked dimly in canon—clamor, mist, shaping the glum 

worship. The rite of splay—to utter a corpse to dazzle—
entombing the nebulous flesh in funerary hum, a syllabic urn.

Copyright © 2023 by Santee Frazier. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 21, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“‘Fugal’ distills ideas regarding the usage of human remains to establish epistemologies that relegate Indigenous peoples to primitive existences. This work is part of a series of sound poems that seek to disassemble and decouple language assigned to marginalized cultures.”
—Santee Frazier