When My Brother Was an Aztec

The year we moved off / the reservation /
a / white / boy up the street gave me a green trash bag
fat with corduroys, bright collared shirts

& a two-piece / Tonto / costume
turquoise thunderbird on the chest\
shirt & pants
- Hand-Me-

The year we moved off / the reservation /
a / white / boy up the street gave me a green trash bag
fat with corduroys, bright collared shirts

& a two-piece / Tonto / costume
turquoise thunderbird on the chest\
shirt & pants
- Hand-Me-Down-Halloween (pg. 6)


Two mutants came to the door.
One looked almost human. They wanted
to know if my brother had willed them the pots
and pans and spoons stacked in his basement bedroom.
They said they missed my brother's cooking and did we
have any cake. No more cake here, I told them.
Well, what's in the piñata? they asked. I told them
God was and they ran into the desert, barefoot.
I gave Dad his slide and put Mom's in the freezer.
I brought up the pots and pans and spoons
(really, my brother was a horrible cook), banged them
together like a New Year's Day celebration.
- No More Cake Here (pg. 69)

God created us with absence
in our hands, but we will not return that way.
Not now, when we are both so capable of growing full
on banquets embroidered by Lorca's gypsy nun.
- I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table (pg. 81)


to shut my eyes one more night

on the delta shadows
between your shoulder blades -
mysterious wings tethered inside
the pale cage of your body - run through
by Lorca's horn of moonlight,
strange unicorn loose along the dim streets
separating out skins;

to be still again knowing...
- Monday Aubade (pg. 83)


Tonight, after reading Lorca's Cante jondo, I'm ready, dressed
for the procession, for Jesus's wounds, the mob's red dresses.

The gitana's savage hair charges the night, nocturno de guerra, battle-
field of a thousand and one bulls. Their weapon: violet red dresses.

Santa Teresa, torera, sacrificed her body to the pale horns. A First
Confession: the split fruit made my thighs buck under my red dress....
- Lorca's Red Dress (pg. 87)

Each night after dinner, Mojave Barbie sneaked from the guesthouse - next to the tennis courts and Hairtastic Salon - to rendezvous with Ken, sometimes in the collapsible Glamour Camper, but most often in the Dream Pool. She would yenni Ken all night long. (Yenni was the Mojave word for sex, explained a culturally informative booklet included in Mojave Barbie's box, along with an authentic frybread recipe, her Certificate of Indian Blood, a casino plater's card, and a voided per capita check.) They took precautions to prevent waking others inside the Dream House - Mojave Barbie's tan webbed hand covering Ken's always-open mouth muffled his ejaculations.
- The Last Mojave Indian Barbie (pg. 27)

Naked blue boy put down your pipe. They found your shoes in the meadow. Mom's and Dad's hearts are overripe....
- A Brother Names Gethsemane (pg. 64)

A sweeping gesture to the thorn of mast jutting from my mother's spine - spine a series of narrow steps leading to the temple of her neck where the things we worship demand we hurl her heart from that height, still warm, still humming with the holy music of an organ...
- Self-Portrait as Chimera (pg. 77)

I watched a lion eat a man like a piece of fruit, peel tendons from fascia like pith from rind, then lick the sweet meat from its hard core of bones. The man had earned this feast and his own deliciousness by ringing a stick against the lion's cage, calling out, Here, Kitty Kitty, Meow!
- A Wild Life Zoo (pg. 101)

 . . . Why
 did you cover the bedroom windows with yesterday's
 newspaper? The pages are yellow,
 the stories are old.
 - The Mercy Songs to Melancholy (pg. 23)

There are certain words
you can’t say in airports–
words that mean bomb, blow up, jihad,
hijack, terrorist, terrorism, terrorize,
terrific fucking terror.
 And words like orange—
small citrus grenades,
laced with steel seeds, rinds lined
with anthrax.
 Security cameras scan and scrutinize
Californians. Floridians
are profiled, picked for full-body
fondlings — everyone knows Florida
is the Axis of Oranges.
 Loudspeakers announce:
All passengers’ navels
must be covered or checked in baggage.
Congress is considering mandatory
navelectomies.
Orange Alert paranoia eats away
at the nation like a very hungry caterpillar.
 The Mexicans, known agents of oranges,
are scared — taking to the streets, picketing,
fighting for naranjas as if they were their own
corazones. They don’t understand —
We don’t fly, they say. If we want to travel
we borrow Tia Silvi’s minivan.
 Pamphlets flutter from the sky
telling how to tell
if someone’s a terrorist: They tell jokes
with punch lines like:
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
 Women with B cups, men with certain-
sized crotches, even those with
man-boobs, are squeezed, bobbled in search
of forbidden fruits — questioned
about stowed-away pomelos, tangelos,
sun-kissed explosive devices,
quarters of tart dynamite.
 Orchards are napalmed.
Homeland Security says, Convert them all
 to parking lots. Go, men! Go!
We’re out for blood oranges.
 Orange Aide to Third World fruit stands
was canceled.
The U.N. expunged
the Oranges for Oil campaign.
It doesn’t stop there —
 patriot posses mow down highway cones,
the DOT revolted and wrecked their fleets
of clementine-colored trucks,
school crossing guards are mauled in their tangy vests —
beaten with Walk signs
by packs of anti-mandarin kindergarteners.
O.J. Simpson’s in jail.
 Tropicana sold out to V8.
Orange County is a mere smudge
in the West Coast sky.
 Halloween was banned–
Jehovah’s Witnesses shake their heads
saying, We told you so.
In the haze of this early winter,
blue flames engulf the cities.
Wait — what’s that you say?
We’ve been bumped to red alert?
But that’s like apples and oranges.
 - Orange Alert (pg. 91)