Maybe we can stay here.
But Coyote (being crafty)
takes Water Monster’s baby
& Water Monster
rains & rains in sadness.
The water stretches its fingers
higher & higher.
First Man plants trees,
but none grow tall enough
to escape the flood.
Then he plants a male reed—
it doesn’t grow.
Then he plants a female reed—
it stretches to the sky
& they escape to the Glittering World.
Moth: The female reed grew cause she had to.
Me (Sani): She had to save everyone.
Moth: Did you need someone to save you, Sani?
Me (Sani): I needed someone to see me, Moth.
FOURTH WORLD (NI’HALGAI)
The Glittering World is where
First Man & First Woman stay.
They plant soil taken from the
Yellow World & grow things.
They find balance.
They live & live
until it is time to die
peacefully.
Moth: Maybe they don’t have to die.
Me (Sani): Everyone has a death date, Moth.
Moth: Maybe they turn into mermaids
in the Third World & hide & live & live.
Me (Sani): I’ll hide with you in any world you want, Moth.
WE SLEEP
Eventually my eyes do close,
my head tucked under Sani’s chin,
my hands fast around his shirt,
his hands on my back, holding me
close & closer & closest.
Our “Summer Song”
is a red string lacing
our tendons together.
When I smile, he smiles.
When he frowns, I frown.
It happens naturally, like magic.
There is not a particle between us.
Like we are buried in the same hole.
ON OUR WAY TO NORTH CAROLINA
Sani sings
loud, with a smile
that fits around the sadness in his face
over & over again.
Honey, all the clocks are against us,
we’ve got one summer, I’ll do your bidding.
Just tell me what you want.
I’ll do anything you want.
GHOST TOWN IN THE SKY, MAGGIE VALLEY, NORTH CAROLINA
On nights we sleep close & unseam in the morning,
the places where we no longer touch feel raw.
We follow Rich Cove Road almost four thousand feet up
into the sky. So high up, I think if it were dark
I might be able to taste stars.
The amusement park in the sky is closed
& abandoned, but on road trips
you shatter rules, so we sneak in.
The grass has taken back most of the rides.
I sit on a railing looking out at the mountains
we drove through.
Something metal falls & I jump.
Sani still watches the trees.
Sani says: My people think ghosts are tricksters.
What’s wrong with a trick? (I ask.)
Sani says: Sometimes tricks hurt your heart.
My people think ghosts can cling tightly to you.
Like a shadow suit?
Sani’s frown lines collect like a crash: Yes.
& he digs into his pockets,
pulls out the pills wrapped in cloth.
They are clear & stuffed
with dried plants.
Pops two orbs (filled with herbs) into his mouth
& slices through the weeds, away from me.
HOLDING MY BREATH
I inhale deep.
Sani doesn’t reach for my hand;
he drives with his jaw screwed shut,
with knuckles white.
I wonder if he feels it, too,
like nothing will be close enough
so maybe far away is better.
The feeling when we fell asleep,
tucked together like twin ghost stories in a book—
our skin reached out & grew together.
It is scary to think of ripping apart each morning,
so scary,
I forget to exhale.
I imagine smoothing
Sani’s creased brow
& he looks at me, startled.
How strange,
how quickly lifelines merge
like the vines in me
reach across air to
play in his hair.
SUNRISE INN MOTEL
Sani looks at me again, but he still won’t talk.
There is only one bed, again;
this time we split it
with a fault line of feathered pillows.
I stretch my legs, weary from ten hours in the car.
Sani turns off the light & even though we don’t touch,
we share the darkness that pushes into each of us.
I am grateful that in the morning
my skin won’t have to rip from his.
Sani turns to me. It hurts to know you will leave.
It’s hard. Everything leaves me.
My voice, my heart, my mom.
Your voice won’t leave you.
I won’t leave, Sani.
You will.
I won’t.
Honey, you will.
He says it like a prophecy
I can’t rewrite.
But your voice won’t.
BILLY TRIPP’S MINDFIELD, BROWNSVILLE, TENNESSEE
When Sani looks at art he inspects it like a thing
you love without knowing why.
Sometimes Sani looks at me like I am the Glittering World.
Sometimes he looks through me
like I am wispy fog.
Today he looks at me,
in me,
eyes shaded as I swing on the twisted metal,
taking up all the space I can
while there is still time.
Swinging wildly by the hotel,
where we split everything in two
so we would not have to feel anything.
It’s the largest outdoor sculpture in Tennessee.
Some parts are so tall, they threaten to
puncture the sun.
I swing & Sani asks me, But how far down in the ground
do you think the metal goes?
I smile into the sun. It grows from hell;
these are the horns of the devil.
Swinging feels like dancing but not exactly.
Swinging reminds me of being a kid.
Reminds me of when my hands were so small
that when Dad and I crossed the street
on our way to the local playground
he would only put out his middle & pointer fingers
for my tiny hand to grasp.
I smile & a smile opens Sani’s lips & shows his teeth,
a smile just for me. He asks,
How did you become home so quickly?
I swing again.
Magic, Sani. Magic.
HOME
It is strange that each town we inch through,
with its estimated population, is someone’s home.
A place that is so much a part of their bones,
they can’t home anything else.
His (Sani’s) favorite “Summer Song” lyric so far:
I want to suffocate your sadness.
My (Moth’s) favorite “Summer Song” lyric so far:
I have found that the whites of your bones are so lovely,
they should be carved into piano keys.
I’d say this Wrangler
is the first home I can recall in two years.
Sani says: I don’t think it’s my fault
my stepfather hates me.
I don’t think Mom knows
how to
leave anyone again.
Moth: It’s not your fault, Sani.
Grandfather says
some people are just born unbalanced.
They are just born hateful.
THE BLUEBIRD CAFE, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
I have been here once before.
For dinner
after a national dance competition.
Three years ago,
Mom sat at the table by the window,
her hair slick in a severe high bun.
My nails drag across my palms,
trying to extend the lifelines
of everyone I love.
I sip from Sani’s drink.
It tastes like dust & it tastes like blood.
The glass shatters in my hand.
Sani puts money on the table.
Sani touches my arm,
leads me away
from the window
& out the door.
He pulls me into the car,
holds me together
like he knows
I might spill out through my scar.
But it’s not enough,
the heated hands of hell
are coming for me—
I was supposed to die with them
in the car that split
like a candy bar.
My body slipping away from itself,
so I open the door.
I run
I run
I run away.
Without Sani,
just like he told me I would.
DUST #3
I am sure
some of me fell
through my scar
onto the table
of the Bluebird Cafe.
I am sure
it has already been swept up.
So I can never get it back—
I don’t think.
Look at me, leaving myself places.
Living so lofty, so dusty—
taking up so much space.
MOTEL WHATEVER
I find my way back
to the motel
& find Sani making a rocking chair
of his body.
Knees tucked to his chin, swaying
back & forth
until I appear in front of him
& he reaches for me,
tucks me under his chin.
He smooths his hands
over my back.
I rest here, cocooned
& harden for hours.
Sani says, I don’t know how to
be whole anymore.
I say, Whatever you need
you can borrow from me.
Sani convinces me
that if I stand on his feet & sway,
it is not the same as dancing.
I say I will if he sings.
His voice vibrates the vines in me.
My tiny feet on his & he holds
my waist & he sways like I weigh nothing.
I close my eyes,
try to hold it together
as I remember what dance feels like—
for a moment I am full
on movement.
WILLOW: NASHVILLE CEMETERY
We make an unplanned stop
because, according to Sani,
we’ve got time & that is what you do
on road trips.
The sun sets over our Wrangler outside the cemetery
my grandfather brought me to ten years ago.
I drop coins by the entrance,
by the wrought iron gate with pointy tips
like iron teeth.
We find the spot where my gray-bearded grandfather opened
the ground beneath a willow, at the crossroads.
Where he chanted to the spirits—thanking them
for their wisdom
& knowledge as he poured whiskey into the dry hole he created.
I wonder if he knew
that our car would split in two
& our family would split in two
& my face would split in two.
We dig & dig,
find the photo of my grandfather
& me, hands linked
like chains in a fence,
but both our faces are rotted away—
gone.
The feather is
still as crisp
as the day it was buried.
Sani smells the feather.
It smells like mountain smoke. It looks familiar.
Still smells like mountain smoke? I frown.
Still, he whispers, cradling the feather to his heart.
Sani hands me the feather like he is handing me his soul.
Your grandfather was a great Hoodoo man, Moth.
I exhale the smell of smoke. But even the greatest
Hoodoo man can’t bring back the dead.
I dig deeper in the hole
& pull out an envelope.
Inside is a dusty,
musty Juilliard application.
Looks like it was printed out
a decade ago.
Sani exhales,
pulls out his mystery pills
cradled in fabric, filled with dried plants
& a cloud covers his face.
BRUISES
Sani is silent as we ride
the vine of the road to our next motel.
His sadness comes in waves
& sometimes, if the moon
secrets tsunami out of him
& crash into the air.
Secrets like:
My mom went to college in New Mexico,
far away from her father’s bruising hands
& she met my dad (gentle & healing).
Things like:
Father was busy healing,
Mother was busy packing.
Kindness could not keep her.
I felt like an accident
tossed from nation (Navajo) to nation (United States).
Secrets like:
Father said that on the day I was born
I cried so hard, it started raining—
I held sadness closer than my own ghost.
It’s always been like that;
I’ve always needed pills,
blue-and-white pills,
but I need them less with you.
I notice the things Sani doesn’t say—
like how the bruise around his eye
changes from blue to brown
& now it is faint but yellow & orange.
Not yellow like
the color of the golden sun.
More like the color
of actual gold
tucked into the dirt,
hiding—
in Sani’s skin.
MOTEL GUITAR LESSONS
Sani is teaching me to play guitar
in a random motel
because I told him my brother
was going to teach me
before we broke in half.
Outside the rain tap-dances;
inside it is humid & the air conditioner
wants to be an off-key saxophone.
It is too hot, but still Sani pulls me onto his lap
& places the guitar in front of us.
He teaches me three different chords,
showing my fingers where to press.
I’ve missed playing. He smiles. I forgot how much
I’ve missed this.
He rests his chin on my shoulder,
whispering, Good job, honey,
even when I mess up.
I lean back into him,
tracing the tattoos on his skin.
Voltage on our tongues,
glows ballerina-witchcraft.
Sani leans into my ear,
his breath kissing
my green hair.
Honey, your hands are fluent
in foreplay, all curves & a little bite.
My fingers lace into his.
; This is going to be a long song.
His lips breeze
against the soft skin behind my ear.
Maybe it’s a song
that never has to end …
maybe …
TIME IS NOTHING BUT AN ILLUSION
Tucked in beside Sani I say,
Did you know one day on Venus
is equal to two hundred forty-three days on Earth?
Sani watches my mouth as I speak.
That explains it, then.
We are living on Venus time.
I nod:
I’ve known you for seven years.
I nuzzle even closer,
my lips graze his neck
& his heart beats
so recklessly in his chest,
I think it might explode.
FORT SMITH NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, ARKANSAS
Sani wants me to see Fort Smith.
He says, My dad brought me here when I was young.
There is information about the fort
written on wooden plaques covered in glass.
It says where the gallows were,
its foundation sticking up from the dirt
like a stony hand.
I don’t have enough coins to place here,
at a crossroads of the Trail of Tears.
Sani touches the cool ground, his eyes
dart over the landscape, he shakes his head—
So many ghosts linger here, so much pain.
My fingers curl over his shoulder.
Sani’s hand covers mine. The Cherokee lost
one-quarter of their population. That’s what the sign says,
they lost their way of life, their Motherland.
Sani grinds his teeth: Father taught me that there are five hundred
sixty-eight Native American tribes
but only three hundred twenty-six reservations.