Robin Coste Lewis

Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin on my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being postmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see them, nor understand what I knew to be circling inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled a banana. And cursed God—His arrogance, His gall—to still expect our devotion after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed my son the papery dead skins so he could know, too, what it feels like when something shows up at your door—twice—telling you what you already know.

We meet—sometimes—between the dry hours, Between clefts in the involuntary plan, Refusing to think of rent or food—how Civic the slick to satisfied from man. And Democratic. A Lucky Strike each, we Sponge each other off, while what's greyed In and grey slinks ashamed down the drain. No need to articulate great restraint, No need to see each other's mouth lip The obvious.Giddy. Fingers garnished With fumes of onions and garlic, I slip Back into my shift, then watch her hands—wordless— Reattach her stockings to the martyred Rubber moons wavering at her garter.

Kin Kletso/Yellow House Chaco Canyon, San Juan County, New Mexico Anasazi Ruins, AD 1125-1130 for Henri, at 2 You step down into the Flat World Then ask me to say it, to explain How our name can mean both ancestor And enemy. Your body begins in four directions. Here, one calendar takes eighteen years. I am three. One day is an eyelash. Your body is a segment of prehistoric road, A buried stairwell with only the top stair obvious. We are alluvial, obsidian. Sometimes the ground swells With disappointment; sometimes we know our mountains Will be renamed after foreign saints. We sing nine-hundred-year-old hymns That instruct us in how to sit still For forty-nine years Through a fifty-year drought. We climb down through the hole anyway, And agree to the arrangement.

I would figure out all the right answers first, then gently mark a few of them wrong. If a quiz had ten problems, I'd cancel out one. When it had twenty, I'd bite my tongue then leave at least two questions blank: _____ _____. A B was good, but an A was too good. They'd kick your ass, call your big sister slow, then stare over your desk, as if you'd snaked out of a different hole. Knowing taught me—quickly—to spell community more honestly:l-o-n-e-l-y. During Arts and Crafts, when Miss Larson allowed the scissors out, I'd sneak a pair, then cut my hair to stop me from growing too long.