Poem for Friday, October 5, 2012

Desert Child

i.

she is a summer solstice birth
a compromise in lieu of rain
she is a bear
crawling up the roots of a stalk
she is Desert Child
skinned knees and corn teeth
she visits Dune Husker
lends him her kachina dolls
she is ochre skin
eyes carved from obsidian
she is baked bread
hardened in the sunshine
she is red river clay
burning in her mother's kiln
she is the pueblo
she is the pueblo
blood spilt in the sod
buried underneath the moon


ii.

Dune Husker told her how the
winos call him a bastard. one
man says your daddy must've
been some mestizo who fucked
and fled the rez. another says
stick around boy I'll let you
throw stones at my bottles when
they're good and empty.

Desert Child smiled showing
her corn teeth. the sky is your
father, mine too and everyone's.
He followed her up the mesa
spotted eagles and repeated
their screeches. She wiped the
sweat from his wrinkled brow
smeared it on the sandstone.


iii.

Desert Child's vision:

an old Indian man fed her stars
she swallowed them whole
became a supernova and felt
love. He dressed her in wolf
skin. He choked on his own
faith.

Dune Husker's vision:

an old Indian man rattled off
in the arroyo. he ate the glass
out of the sand. tell me, boy
has the truth knocked the wind
out of you yet? god it hurts when
it does.


iv.

she is a moonbeam
glowing during kiva prayers
she is cactus juice
trickling down Athabascan throats
she is femininity
brown breasts hidden in cotton
she loves Dune Husker
gives him her body on the mesa
she is a rain dance
stomping on the cracked earth
she is language
forgotten by the blue-eyed ones
she is a loom
spinning threads of rainbow
she is the pueblo
she is the pueblo
purple in the night sky
faded by morning breath