Self-Portrait as MRI

 

For Immediate Release:

On July 1st, 2022, neurologist Jane Smith discovered the original
Ingalls Cabin. While conducting a routine MRI (patient: 36, F,
Dena’ina and white, familial history of aneurysms) Smith noted
irregularities in the patient’s mind. After applying contrast, Dr.
Smith confirmed the irregularities were comprised of logs and sod
impinging on Broca’s region as well as the frontal and parietal
lobes. At this point Dr. Smith alerted the appropriate authorities
and the patient’s brain was declared a historical site. Currently the
Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder Association is working to
return the cabin to the Association. For all further inquiries please
contact Mercy West’s Communications Department.

Patient Statement:

Once I saw it on film, I remembered how it happened. Pa cut the
timber and planed the planks. The librarian spoke the walls into my
mind while I sat on my red-carpet square. Mary and Ma filled the
chinks with mud. That’s why the cabin withstood the wind. The
doctor says that it’s in good repair except for the floors. Ma always
was ashamed of them and how her rocking chair worked grooves
into the unfinished floor. They’re deep enough that you can see
them on the imaging, looks like an unshelled walnut. What you
can’t see: the first night they slept in the cabin, Pa said he heard
wolves at the door. What you can’t see: it was only me, asking to
come in[1]

Complaint: it wasn’t until later that I remembered Mr. Scott telling Pa and Ma that the “only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
[2]

Diagnosis: the desire to pass.
.

 

 

 

Historian’s Note:

This is an exciting addition to our contemporary understanding of
the American Frontier. Historians have long assumed the Ingalls
Cabin was destroyed. Perhaps by the very Indians who frequently
frightened Ma. This discovery also provides fresh evidence that the
Ingalls family traveled much further West than previously
believed. At present the Department of the Doctrine of Discovery
is planning a pilgrimage to retrace the Ingalls family’s path into the
West. Expedition date TBA.

Coroner’s Note:

Upon removal the Ingall’s Cabin weighed 100 grams. At 5cm wide
by 3cm long, the building is smaller than expected given its
outsized impact on the host’s health. Although this object cannot
be listed as the cause of death, its role in the manner of death is
inescapable[3]

Complaint: Remember the blizzard?

How cold? How white? The rope leading

from the cabin to the barn.

.

 

 

 

References

References
1

Complaint: it wasn’t until later that I remembered Mr. Scott telling Pa and Ma that the “only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

2

Diagnosis: the desire to pass.

3

Complaint: Remember the blizzard?

How cold? How white? The rope leading

from the cabin to the barn.

Annie Wenstrup is a Dena’ina poet and Inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Alaska Quarterly Review, Ecotone, Nimrod, POETRY, Palette, Poetry Northwest, and Ran Off with the Star Bassoon
Explore Related Content
,