Jonny Appleseed

by Joshua Whitehead

My stepdad Roger called me an apple when I told him I wanted to leave the rez. “You’re red on the outside,” he said, “and white on the inside.”

Yeah, an NDN home is like a dandelion: pretty but disposable, and imbued with a million little seeds that dissolve into wishes for little white hands that pluck. My home is full of hope and ghosts.