Thomas Jefferson, a founding father,
owned one hundred thirty-five bodies.
I add,
He didn’t own
their souls, though.
The house is round & bald & white
like an eagle’s head.
We skip the tour
that builds a toothpick home out of the
goodness in the hearts of plantation owners.
I lead Sani to the back, where the slave quarters
are left in shambles.
A plaque indicates the location;
the names of the 135 people are missing.
I don’t have a white plate
like Grandfather taught me.
So I spread the pancakes,
dripping butter & syrup,
on a white napkin & hope
the ancestors will understand.
Now what? Sani sits beside me.
Now we thank them for their strength & guidance.
I also ask them for joy for Sani, who is always
trying to outrun the shadows around him.
When we open our eyes
the pancakes are deflated balloons.
That means they took the offering.
Before entering the small graveyard
I tie a scarf around my head.
Grandfather said that would keep
evil spirits from attaching.
Sani & I leave coins
in the small graveyard—
an offering,
but not nearly enough.
None of this is enough. I frown.
Sani tugs me to him,
places a light-feathered kiss
on the top of my head.
I glance up at him,
but he is looking
at the death dates on the graves.
He looks down, not at me.
Through me.
Behind his eyes I see him
building the wall back up.
Death is a strange thing.
I reach for his hand,
he turns & strides to the car.
I know Sani must be angry—
with his mother (her silence),
his father (his important work),
his stepfather (his fists),
the universe (for delivering this).
So, even though when he leaves
I feel as empty as a drought
(I can’t be mad at him).
The sun is out, so I open my mouth
& imagine devouring it.
I try to fill up on life.
DUST #2
I am sure
at some point a tear
mixed with soul
escapes my cheek
& splatters on the ground
in the tiny graveyard
filled with brown bodies.
I hope I do not disturb the dead
with my molting.
I am stuffed by the sun;
the more I ignite, the more I feel
the heated hands of hell
reaching up,
begging me down.
Like now that I am living they remember
they forgot to take me
down
down
down.
THOMAS JEFFERSON HAD A BLUE BEARD
When I get to the car Sani blinks at me
& exhales shaky & slow.
On the ride away
from the place that preserves sin
in spare closets,
I offer Sani the story of the wealthy man,
Bluebeard, who kept murdering his wives
because they broke one rule.
Bluebeard dripped money,
but he was hideous.
He told his new wife
not to open one door—
just like god told Adam & Eve
not to eat one fruit.
Being human,
the wife opens the door & finds
the bodies of his other wives,
hanging & bloody.
Most of the founding fathers
were like that;
they spoke of freedom
but did not offer it to everyone.
They had bodies in their closets.
Sani taps the wheel.
What’s in your closet, Moth?
My hand out the window,
the breeze
breaking my fingers.
Bodies & dirt & metal.
Sani frowns.
It’s not your fault, honey.
I shake my head, loosening the memories of the crash.
You don’t understand—
I lived too much. I took up too much space.
Sani’s jaw works.
You can’t shrink.
My hands bind together in my lap.
You shrink, Sani, you try not
to take up any space at all,
you don’t sing, you don’t smile.
Sani white-knuckles the wheel.
Can’t you see I am working on that?
No. I can’t.
THINGS I NOTICE ABOUT SANI WHILE HE SINGS “STRANGE FRUIT” BY BILLIE HOLIDAY
Two fingers on his right hand bend funny.
He sings soft, like he doesn’t want to disturb anything living.
He feels it all & it is all too much & not enough.
He balances thunderclouds on his tongue before swallowing them.
He has flown & fallen—like Icarus.
That is why he doesn’t trust his own wings anymore.
THINGS MY GRANDFATHER TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE SOUTH
The enslaved were one-third of the population in the South,
but their souls were not given any space.
The Constitution licked the lips of slavery
for more than two hundred years.
Dusty slave quarters with earth for floors
beside rotundas & white pillars.
Hoodoo was rooted to rebel.
When the pillars crumbled
America cleared her throat & yelled, Jim Crow.
& confederate statues were erected
& loitering became illegal
& prisons became stuffed
with free labor.
& when Black people stepped out of line
they were beaten
& when they stepped out again
photographs were taken of their burning bodies
& crafted into postcards.
Love notes from the South.
xoxo
THINGS SANI KNOWS ABOUT THE SOUTH
Everything was green,
then a white-faced virus
claimed countless souls, clung
to everything, claimed all
the dirt.
Broke the trees,
impaled the land.
Herded humans
away.
Took everything—
everything,
everything …
Did not leave a crumb.
NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA
It looks like the land grew around an ancient giant’s head,
the grass some sort of green crown.
Sani stands in the opening, the breeze
a wave under his arms. If this is a giant’s head,
where is the skull?
Dust beneath your feet. I place two coins on the ground—
because lately everywhere I step seems to be a dying place.
A graveyard.
Sani lowers his arms.
His knees buckle & hit the ground,
his palms cup a handful of dirt
& he chants
a song that hovers in the air.
A song to find the way home,
in case our giant is lost.
We hike to the top. The thick moss impersonates
dark green hair.
Sani reaches for my hand, as the sun sets.
I say, I bet our giant
could cross
the world in one thousand steps.
There is not a soul in sight, but a shadow
sprouts in front of us, hunchbacked,
long-haired & ancient, slouching westward.
Sani says, I am trying, Moth.
I thank the giant for his ancient head
& the perfect view & for helping Sani
want to try to take up more space.
Sani’s thumb draws half-moons over my palm
& the shadow shrinks.
Sani whispers
softer than snow kissing the ground,
I don’t understand how our thumbprints match.
This time he doesn’t pull away.
INTERSTATE 40
After the giant’s shadow shrinks into myth
we hike back to the Wrangler & check the map.
until it reaches California.
Two thousand five hundred miles
for the Wrangler to attack.
Sani folds the route back into a rectangle & we climb
into the Jeep.
He almost smiles & sings:
Stars, fireflies in the sky, flicker on
& the moon
is a hooked fingernail
beckoning us away.
I add it to our “Summer Song.”
Moth, tell me a story about the stars.
Sani hesitates before reaching for my hand,
his thumb on my wrist.
I don’t know any stories about stars. I stare straight ahead.
Nighttime is for storytelling.
Sani twines his fingers in mine
like vines growing over my hands.
Grandfather said nighttime is for the dead.
I follow the lifeline on his palm,
so much longer than my own.
Sani points at the fireflies in the sky.
The Holy Ones planned the constellations
to help us understand the passage of time.
The Holy Ones placed precious gems on a perfect buckskin—
the first constellation created was the Big Dipper, or
as we (the Diné) call it, the Male Revolver.
Next more stones were placed on the buckskin
& the Female Revolver (Cassiopeia) was created.
Between them was a fire hearth
(the North Star)
that kept them warm.
I crane my neck to get a better look at the sky.
I see them, a man & a woman dancing around Polaris.
Sani’s thumb still traces my wrist.
Would you dance with me in the sky?
No.
No? The sky is not the ground.
What if I sing?
It’s the ground to someone.
I untwine my fingers from his.
I can’t dance.
I can’t be so ravenous
when it costs so much.
My heart gallops
when Sani holds my hand.
Speeds too fast,
so I have to let go.
MOTEL #1
One bed
Mildew & musk & mothballs
Twenty bucks
Mattress springs that poke
Lamp with red fringe
Sani, are you awake?
Always, honey. Glad you are talking again.
I thought of a story to tell you.
A bedtime story, (Moth)?
It’s a long story, (Sani).
I’ve got time, (Moth).
It’s a creation story, (Sani).
OLD SOUTH: PRACTICE APOCALYPSE
FIRST
Night orbits a house.
It haunts, constricts
until its weight slithers through cracks
& finds an innocent to smother.
Which is fine, because in this story
there are no innocents left.
Sani: Not one innocent?
Moth (Me): Not a single one.
NEXT
Mama wakes to small handprints fading on the window—
Hercules (the man & the constellation)
is stuck in the cabinet again.
He rattles & wrestles the dishes like they’re hydras.
Sani: Hydras?
Moth (Me): Really huge snake with infinite heads.
Sani: Oh, I see.
On Sundays, Mama walks to the wooden church—
lets the Holy Ghost hoist her high, throw her down
& play her like a drum.
After church, Mama gathers roots & dirt.
She stuffs every jar in her simple house with blood
& fingernails & shed hair & forget-me-nots
for when the days get long.
Forget-me-nots for when
(Night) wants more than you have to give.
Sani (reaching for my hand): What does Night want?
Moth (Me): Not much. Night is a sad ghost. She just wants joy.
Sani (shrugging): I understand that.
THEN
The Southern heat causes sweat to fall in tiny drops
around Mama’s figure. Mama’s black kettle screams of burns.
She paces her nerves by whispering
& having conversations with rusty photographs, ancestors—
old friends.
Sani: Hold up. Is this a ghost story?
Moth (Me, standing on the bed, curtsying): Don’t be scared.
Welcome to the Old South.
Tobacco still in the air,
In the morning, when (Night) leaves—
walls return.
From the bay window, cloudy shadows stalk
among the rows of oak trees, one missing a leg,
the other with lashes on its back.
Sani: Honey, this is definitely a ghost story.
Moth (Me): All stories have ghosts.
Sani (looking sad): That is true.
THERE IS MORE
Night is vengeful & brisk—a glass chandelier
in a Southern mansion, beautiful, afraid of heights
but hoisted high.
Sani: I don’t like this story.
Moth (Me): Hush. Almost done.
One day a rich Black Hoodoo man buys
the weed-laced plantation.
He has to call on his ancestors to cleanse the home
because the walls shake in protest—
there is an uprising in the bones of the mansion.
You know, the whip forgets blood,
cotton doesn’t recall mahogany hands
& with all this forgetting, nothing stays.
The Hoodoo man builds a miniature of the plantation,
takes it down to the river & says,
I will drown you.
Your shackled hymn, too much glass tearing through skin,
a sound I’ve been told to put out.
LAST
After the Hoodoo man cleanses the plantation, Night leaves,
the ancestors disperse to their favorite rooms.
Behind closed doors a song that sounds like moaning—
Sani (eyebrow raised): Moaning?
Moth (smirking): Moaning.
The Hoodoo man prepares a feast,
sits at the head of his table,
calls on his ancestors to join.
Ghosts shimmy in with the mosquitoes—
bugs collect, trapped in the net that Pisces has thrown.
By midnight the weed-laced home
at a crossroads is inside out (again)—
& so it goes
&
so it goes.
WE LIE LIKE TWIN SPIRITS
Sani (smiling a real smile):
Was that supposed to put me to sleep?
Moth (Me):
I want you
awake.
I don’t like closing my eyes.
Sani (smiling bigger):
Look at you taking up space.
I have a long story to tell you.
CREATION ACCO
RDING TO SANI
The Four Worlds
FIRST WORLD (NI’HODILHIL)
The Diné call it the Black World,
the first peg in a climb to the present,
because there is always a climb.
In the Black World
only Holy People & insects live.
Four columns of clouds
grow from nothing.
Between them First Man
& First Woman
sprout like a miracle
& everything is peace
until it isn’t.
The Holy People
set fire to the darkness.
Man & Woman & insects
escape to the Second World
using a big reed.
’Cause sometimes
you just have to run.
Moth (frowning): Are you always running?
Me (Sani): Who isn’t?
SECOND WORLD (NI’HODOOTL’IZH)
It’s blue & flows with more life—
birds, insects & even more Holy People.
First Woman thinks, Maybe this is home.
First Man knows, There can be many homes.
They live & live until (again) the Holy People quarrel
& send great winds blowing everything—
First Man & First Woman tumble,
bruised in the Second World.
They can’t find a way out.
Then First Man makes a prayer stick
from a reed & carves footsteps
in its flesh. A path appears
& (together) they climb
into the Third World.
Moth (tears in her eyes): Why are the Holy People mad?
Me (Sani): They are not mad. They know of better worlds.
THIRD WORLD (NI’HALTSOH)
Rivers cut through mountains.
It is bright & yellow & peace-filled.
So peaceful that First Man
& First Woman think,