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This is where you leave me. Filling of old salt and ponderous, what’s left of your voice in the air. Blue honeycreeper thrashed out to a ragged wind, whole months spent crawling this white beach raked like a thumb, shucking, swallowing the sea’s benediction, pearled oxides. Out here I am the body invented naked, woman emerging from cold seas, herself the raw eel-froth met beneath her tangles, who must believe with all her puckering holes. What wounds the Poinciana slits forth, what must turn red eventually. The talon-mouths undressing. The cling-cling bird scratching its one message; the arm you broke reset and broke again. Caribbean. Sky a wound I am licking, until I am drawn new as a lamb, helpless in the chicken wire of my sex. I let every stranger in. Watch men change faces with the run-down sun, count fires in the loom-holes of their pickups, lines of rot, studying their scarred window-plagues, nightshade my own throat closed tight against a hard hand. Then all comes mute in my glittering eye. All is knocked back, slick hem-suck of the dark surf, ceramic tiles approaching, the blur of a beard. The white tusk of his ocean goring me. This world unforgiving in its boundaries. The day’s owl and its omen slipping a bright hook into my cheek —

it started with the first time i opened the closet in my new bedroom. paper flecks bursting from behind the door. they had been waiting all millennia. you helped me pick them from my hair but even weeks later we’d still find pieces in between teeth — under tongues — on shoulders & lodged beneath fingernails. you were always so gentle as you’d release them out the window — same as you’d do for a spider. when finished with a rainbow it is the task of the youngest angel to put it through the paper shredder. he crouches in the cloud mist — taking handfuls of the body’s remnants. he learns not to weep after years of practice. the first rainbow he shredded was that one that we tried to follow in your car — driving around wet fallen trees — mist rising from the asphalt. we never did get there but we did stop for ice cream. you bit the bottom off the cone. the sound of the rainbow’s destruction was only a dull static noise to us down here. i noticed it but didn’t want to tell you. the next time i was tearing open what looked like a credit card offer in the mail & out came the confetti. we had just stopped finding it on everything — gushing like an artery i covered my face until it was through. mounds upon mounds of color. stole the rake from my aunt’s shed we had used to rake leaves in early october before the weather gave herself over to frost. i resisted the impulse to make the confetti into piles to leap into. you were coming over & i wanted to be clean. the next time we slept together i transported myself somewhere else as you kissed me. sat on the collarbone of the rainbow as it was shred along with my hair. me, with the thousand-piece body. me, getting blown away by the first breeze. me, inhaling the tears of the kneeling angel. i came back to the room when you knelt, spitting paper out of your mouth. confetti began to pour out from behind my lips, miraculously dry. each time i tried to apologize more came out; you, naked on the bedroom floor trying to dispose of the colors as they came. flow mountain spring. flow slit neck of a pig. flash flood & flow melted ice cream down to our elbows. by the time it stopped your fear turned to anger. slammed the door as you left & there i was with all this color. i put some in my mouth but it was too bitter too swallow. if i don’t kiss anyone this won’t happen again — i can keep it a beautiful secret. routine: each morning removing the piles of cut paper. when you come over i sometimes find them on your skin. you don’t notice so i kiss them off your neck. i’m trying i’m trying. i peel the rainbows free & roll them up like yoga mats in the closet. the shredding has gotten so loud — i ask you if you hear it & you shake your head, unknowingly. i can’t stand it — i can’t stand it. caress this color out of me.

Shooting pleasures Ok’d by My being seen For Or as If. * Not just light at the end of the tunnel, but hearts, bows, rainbows— all the stickers teachers award if pleased. * Pigeons bathe in technicolor fluid “of a morning.” * If I was banging my head with a shoe, I was just exaggerating— like raising my voice or the ante. Curlicues on iron gratings: Can it be a flourish is a grimace, but a grimace isn’t a flourish? * On the inscribed surface of sleep. Almost constant bird soundings. “Aloha, Fruity Pebbles!” Music, useful for abstracting emphasis. Sweet nothing to do with me.

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song — Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker 1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES: Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand. Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane. Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill. The land is a being who remembers everything. You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs— The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding. As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard: By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words. Do not parade, pleased with yourself. You must speak in the language of justice. 2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT: If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run." The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing. A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice. If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it. At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers. There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota. If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them. We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us. If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run." Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one. We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise. The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house. It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth. White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice. We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance. These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees. 3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK: We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets: Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould... The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck. This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet. You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck. 4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN: I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing. We are here dancing, they said. There was no there. There was no  "I"  or "you." There was us; there was "we." There we were as if we were the music. You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries— —Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds. This is about getting to know each other. We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together. 5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT: A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump. The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions. The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away. He hears the death song of his approaching prey: I will always love you, sunrise. I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes. There, in the cypress tree near the morning star. 6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS: When we made it back home, back over those curved roads that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands. We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story because it was by the light of those challenges we knew ourselves— We asked for forgiveness. We laid down our burdens next to each other.

I’ve been here before, dreaming myself backwards, among grappling hooks of light. True to the seasons, I’ve lived every word spoken. Did I walk into someone’s nightmare? Hunger quivers on a fleshly string at the crossroad. So deep is the lore, there’s only tomorrow today where darkness splinters & wounds the bird of paradise. On paths that plunge into primordial green, Echo’s laughter finds us together. In the sweatshops of desire men think if they don’t die the moon won’t rise. All the dead-end streets run into one moment of bliss & sleight of hand. Beside the Euphrates, past the Tigris, up the Mississippi. Bloodline & clockwork. The X drawn where we stand. Trains follow rivers that curve around us. The distant night opens like a pearl fan, a skirt, a heart, a drop of salt. When we embrace, we are not an island beyond fables & the blue exhaust of commerce. When the sounds of River Styx punish trees, my effigy speaks to the night owl. Our voices break open the pink magnolia where struggle is home to the beast in us. All the senses tuned for the Hawkesbury, labyrinths turning into lowland fog. Hand in hand, feeling good, we walk phantoms from the floating machine. When a drowning man calls out, his voice follows him downstream.

I. T HEIR B ASIC S AVAGERY Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, B OOM , With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM . T HEN I had religion, T HEN I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision. T HEN I SAW THE C ONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK , C UTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. And “B LOOD ” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, “B LOOD ” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM ,” A roaring, epic, rag-time tune From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon. Death is an Elephant, Torch-eyed and horrible, Foam-flanked and terrible. B OOM , steal the pygmies, B OOM , kill the Arabs, B OOM , kill the white men, H OO , H OO , H OO . Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: — “Be careful what you do, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.” II. T HEIR I RREPRESSIBLE H IGH S PIRITS Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call Danced the juba in their gambling-hall And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, And guyed the policemen and laughed them down With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM . T HEN I SAW THE C ONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK , C UTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. A negro fairyland swung into view, A minstrel river Where dreams come true. The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. The inlaid porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore At the baboon butler in the agate door, And the well-known tunes of the parrot band That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came Through the agate doorway in suits of flame, Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust And hats that were covered with diamond-dust. And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call And danced the juba from wall to wall. But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song: — “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.” ... Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes, Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine. And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black-feet. And the couples railed at the chant and the frown Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down. (O rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile.) The cake-walk royalty then began To walk for a cake that was tall as a man To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, B OOM ,” While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air, And sang with the scalawags prancing there: — “Walk with care, walk with care, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Beware, beware, walk with care, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM .” Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile. III. T HE H OPE OF THEIR R ELIGION A good old negro in the slums of the town Preached at a sister for her velvet gown. Howled at a brother for his low-down ways, His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days. Beat on the Bible till he wore it out Starting the jubilee revival shout. And some had visions, as they stood on chairs, And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs, And they all repented, a thousand strong From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong And slammed with their hymn books till they shook the room With “glory, glory, glory,” And “Boom, boom, B OOM .” T HEN I SAW THE C ONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK , C UTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil And showed the Apostles with their coats of mail. In bright white steel they were seated round And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound. And the twelve Apostles, from their thrones on high Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry: — “Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle; Never again will he hoo-doo you, Never again will he hoo-doo you.” Then along that river, a thousand miles The vine-snared trees fell down in files. Pioneer angels cleared the way For a Congo paradise, for babes at play, For sacred capitals, for temples clean. Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean. There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed A million boats of the angels sailed With oars of silver, and prows of blue And silken pennants that the sun shone through. ’Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation. Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation And on through the backwoods clearing flew: — “Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle. Never again will he hoo-doo you. Never again will he hoo-doo you. Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men, And only the vulture dared again By the far, lone mountains of the moon To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:— “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Mumbo ... Jumbo ... will ... hoo-doo ... you.”

I. T HEIR B ASIC S AVAGERY Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, B OOM , With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM . T HEN I had religion, T HEN I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision. T HEN I SAW THE C ONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK , C UTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. And “B LOOD ” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, “B LOOD ” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, B OOM ,” A roaring, epic, rag-time tune From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon. Death is an Elephant, Torch-eyed and horrible, Foam-flanked and terrible. B OOM , steal the pygmies, B OOM , kill the Arabs, B OOM , kill the white men, H OO , H OO , H OO . Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: — “Be careful what you do, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”

All things belie me, I think, but I look at them though. Well boys, at least you’re not dead, right? What’s the date today? Until something. What? Of the lady of the whitening blow. I’m ashamed to keep on babbling as if I’ve always been oneself, diamond flow through. Humble flannel skeleton. Grin, laugh unbecoming Living at the bottom of the water may have been obvious all the time. But I forget. What’s my plot? Hand of a child, paw of an animal. Paint it red & make a pawprint in the psalter. Protect her & give her back her hat Entangle her dreams in demotic and Warm her feet; cheat the judge & protect the tree from which he was carved. * And now that I’ve explained the situation Jesus my frame hurts, you say. Fucking pain. Hey come & empty my ashtray once more & don’t get so excited. A gentle heart was broken. Whose? No one’s It’s a figure like a frame among medlars & briars. Hand me that piece of that, just that, yeah. I don’t mean it, I’ve never meant anything because that’s not what I do, in the mountains I call home How can I tell you of my wound? it’s round & silver & headstrong, it’s nothing more than temperament born of a custom involving a circuitous journey This is all wrong. It rains today, my son’s singing love songs of this country, already being ten. * And if to withstand this nocturnal pollution of the tiny wanton stars with bent hook clauses of misprision I’m supposed to sing the melody of an unexpecting part. . . Hey a pretty honey come a listen to me while I evening, darling, your messages, what would you think then? But I wouldn’t do that. Light surrounded oranges towels clouds. You don’t think you’re my you. Not here not you. You still think you’re he. she. Because I wouldn’t “you” you, would I? I only “you” some other he. she. I who write poems. When she writes them, it’s different. . .A world of words, right? It’s only my version of The Entertainer Nothing truly personal, I’m way above that. I’ve learned about it for a lot of days. I’ve been to see the doctor & you have to have shots for it. 17 balls of yarn & a sewing machine. * No I wouldn’t know why anyone would want to write like that. I should never have had to do it. We were used to this other thing we always know like when we’re here. And you have this clear head & you’re seeing things & there they are. You don’t notice they’re spelled. That’s how you know you’re alive. I never saw you

One fisherman alongside the other one seagull alongside the other seagulls over the fishermen.

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit. —1 Corinthians 12:13 If in his image made am I, then make me a miracle. Make my shrine a copper faucet leaking everlasting Evian to the masses. Make this empty water glass a goblet of long-legged French wine. Make mine a Prince-purple body bag designed by Crown Royal for tax collectors to spill over & tithe into just before I rise. If in his image made am I, then make my vessel a pearl Coupe de Ville. Make mine the body of a 28-year-old black woman in a blue patterned maxi dress cruising through Hell on Earth, TX again alive. If in his image made are we, then why the endless string of effigies? Why so many mortal blasphemes? Why crucify me in HD across a scrolling news ticker, tied to a clothesline of broken necks long as Time? Is this thing on? Jesus on the ground. Jesus in the margins. Of hurricane & sea. Jesus of busted levees in chocolate cities. Jesus of the Middle East (Africa) & crows flying backwards. Of blood, on the leaves, inside diamond mines, in under- developed mineral-rich countries. If in your image made are we, the proliferation of your tie-dyed hippie doppelgänger makes you easier to daily see. & in this image didn’t we make the godhead, slightly stony, high enough to surf a cloud? & didn’t we leave you there, where, surely, paradise or justice must be meted out? Couldn’t we see where water takes the form of whatever most holds it upright? If then this is what it’s come down to. My faith, in rifle shells. In Glock 22 magazine sleeves. Isn’t it also then how, why, in a bucket shot full of holes, I’ve been made to believe?