There are many forts with plaques thanking settlers
for pushing west, for goldrushing & eating the land.
Sani traces the plaque.
I guess land only belongs to white faces.
I do the only thing I can do.
Listen.
TIME TRAVEL MOTEL
It’s raining tap dancers again
& the motel is dim
& Sani can’t sleep
after going to the fort, so
I offer him a story
to hush
hush his mind.
I hush
the pain ricocheting
in his skull. I tell him how to adore
the moon so much you can taste it—
like lemon-spun cotton candy.
I offer him another story
where I change time
& become a giant
& move the car that split mine in two
like a tiny chess piece in my fingers. I tell him
that he can meet my brother, mother & father.
Sani folds in. You can’t do that, honey.
You can’t be the giant who moves the car
& be in the car at the same time.
I can, it’s my story.
In my bones I know he is right
& that makes me ache.
I stand up & head to the door.
I need space to fly, to escape,
but Sani appears in front of me,
eyes bright.
Please don’t leave. Not yet.
Everything is too loud without you.
I can be the giant & in the car!
I think I am yelling.
I am sorry. So sorry, but you can’t.
That’s not how it works.
I remind him, crying, of our “Summer Song”:
Just tell me what you want.
I’ll do anything you want.
Sani stops.
Frowns. Runs to the closet
& pulls out an iron.
How about an iron to smooth the creases
that wrinkle up your spirit?
I laugh (I can’t help it).
Sani laughs (’cause I laugh).
We are both laughing
so hard
we cry
& cry
& feel
& live.
MOTEL MORNING RITUALS (WITH SANI)
I always wake before him
& untangle from his embrace.
I tuck his hair behind his ear
& kiss his forehead
before gathering
the box of roots
Grandfather gave me.
I use the TV stand
as an altar & Sani always remembers
to leave food wrapped in a white napkin
from the night before in the fridge
for an offering.
I pray to the ancestors
(mostly to Grandfather),
thanking them for the boy
with waterfall hair.
Sometimes Sani’s eyes
stay closed & sometimes
they flutter open & he groans,
crawling across the floor
to kneel beside me.
Sani (looking sad): Do the ancestors ever answer?
Me (Moth): They sent me you.
PINNACLE MOUNTAIN STATE PARK, ARKANSAS
Eventually the rain eases up on its reins.
The sky still seems angry, but we drive anyway.
We eat up more road until we can see
Pinnacle Mountain, which stretches itself
slowly toward the sky.
I want to climb it & meet heaven
because I think that is where Mom & Dad
& brother & Grandfather are.
Sani lifts his arms above his head, making a mountain
with his hands & it starts to rain (again).
It is like only the water & wind live here.
I feel filled, like a caterpillar gorged;
my clothes are too tight,
my body too small,
so I lift my top over my head.
Next my jeans melt from my legs.
I jump into the lake.
Sani follows, revealing more tattoos
than I could have guessed.
The sky & the rain baptize our bodies—
sinless & free.
We could live here, he says,
black hair hiding his eyes.
Why just live?
I disappear under the water,
for a moment
existing somewhere else.
You remind me, he says almost to himself,
how nice sound can taste.
We could thrive here.
IT FEELS LIKE THE SECOND WORLD
Floating naked & weightless,
joined by the tips
of our feathered fingers,
we are all water;
we take up 70 percent
of the earth.
Sani tells me
of the Second World again:
Filled with birds
lighter than air
weightless for twenty-three days
until the world grew heavy
& First Man
& First Woman
are pushed to the Third World.
STORYTELLING
Sani turns away from me
as I pull layers of clothes
on, strapping myself
back into the mundane.
I accidently peek & see another
tattoo of five finger grass
on his back & I worry who
(other than me)
wants him to do their bidding.
The car ride is silent as our headlights
somehow lead us miles
while only letting us see twenty feet at a time.
Moths misunderstand the Wrangler’s orb eyes.
I find myself flinching
as each one hits.
Sani is unfazed
by the cemetery on the car windshield.
& (again) I wonder if he is the moon
or a lightbulb.
CAR RIDE: STORYTELLING
Sani:
You tell stories
the same way
I think you would dance.
Sure & full & alive,
alive.
Moth:
You sing
like an oak tree.
Slow & strong & measured.
Sani:
Moth, I want you so close,
I can feel your laugh
before it comes …
but this is hard.
Moth:
Because we are both a little chipped,
like old china?
Sani:
I am chipped china,
you’re a kaleidoscope—
pieces always shifting & growing.
Moth:
Shifting?
Away from you?
You still think I’ll leave.
Sani:
Honey, I want you so close,
but I don’t know if it’s possible.
Moth:
Because I am impossible?
Sani:
You are certainly something
entirely your own.
Moth:
What are you?
Sani:
A broken voice.
What are you?
Moth:
Oh, I am the smoke
& the fire.
Sani:
& the wave
& the lighthouse
& the match—
you set everything ablaze.
STAFFORD AIR & SPACE MUSEUM, WEATHERFORD, OKLAHOMA
According to science, the universe exploded
& has been expanding ever since.
Trillions of light-years across
& one day we will all just freeze because
there won’t be enough suns to heat us.
According
to Sani, there are four worlds
& in every one I might leave him
like everyone leaves him.
In every one his mind is a cluttered attic
with tiny clouds constantly storming
& his pills sometimes help the sun poke through.
According to the Bible, Adam & Eve
are kicked out of Eden.
In Sani’s story, humanity is pushed
out of three worlds before they find home.
According to god, it only took seven days
to craft
reality
& according to my grandfather, the ancestors linger
close; if you listen, they can tell you the truth of all of it.
I’ve been listening & I don’t hear anything—
the ancestors close their lips to me.
Every story
as impossible
as the next.
All true.
According to me, temptation is a sin
that Jesus forgot to write down.
I want the universe
to stop tempting me
with so much life—
then pulling back.
I am not sure I can take
the stretch
& pull of it anymore.
THE LIGHTHOUSE, PALO DURO CANYON STATE PARK, TEXAS
There is a rock called the Lighthouse
where, for a moment, the ground doesn’t know
it is the ground—it could be some dusty-colored ocean.
The rock doesn’t know it is a symbol.
The stars, staggered & graveyarding,
don’t know they are constellations.
Sani winks. How do we know we are alive?
I shrug. Because we can feel the wind.
Sani salutes the Lighthouse. So that’s all, we just have
to keep feeling?
I push my locs out of my face.
Feeling & believing.
Sani stands so close.
I want to believe, I want to feel.
He stands so close,
I can feel his heartbeat through the air.
I’ll help you feel, Sani. I’ll help you believe.
Moth’s favorite “Summer Song” lyric so far:
Honey, all the clocks are against us.
Sani’s favorite “Summer Song” lyric so far:
Honey, all the clocks are against us.
CADILLAC RANCH, AMARILLO, TEXAS
Sani has me stand in the picture.
He sketches the cars & the peaks, hands it to me & says,
You blend in.
DREAM LOVE: MOTEL
The column of his spine is taller when
traced,
laced with black
& gray tattoos.
His hands
on my hands,
my eyes,
my
everywhere.
I feel alive.
Alive. Alive.
Sani kissing a green moth
out of his mouth
& another
& he is choking.
I wake up
staring at Sani.
Sani sleeps,
breathing heavier than usual.
Clothed.
But dreaming of hands
everywhere,
everywhere.
LUNA MOTH
It’s larger than
the width
of a throat.
Dripping green paint with illusion eyes.
It knows it is the prettiest.
It is even given the moon’s name.
Strangely, it is still tricked
by artificial light.
This should (also) be a sin—
but I wish I could just know things
without a trace of doubt.
Like the planted seed knows to grow
& the sun knows to burn
& my legs know to dance
& Sani’s voice knows it should
sing
sing
sing.
NAVAJO NATION, FOUR CORNERS, NEW MEXICO
It’s the size of West Virginia.
Which is far too small … to be fair
in any & every story.
COCOON:
a) a shell a caterpillar creates
b) the first magic trick
c) another boundary
(Moth) You will know your story all at once
or not at all.
—Gray-Bearded Grandfather
(Rootworker)
FOUR CORNERS
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & Utah
The only place in the United States
where four state lines kiss.
Like four barefoot girls
holding hands & circling
a campfire.
This entire region is a crossroads
dripping with magic—
the sandy dirt so vibrant with spirits,
it glitters in the sun.
It feels like the ground reaches
up to cradle the wheels of our car—
I think we might be flying.
The land remembers Sani,
Because the land is me, Moth.
He is right; the breeze
sings through the car
& plays with my hair.
COCOON
When a caterpillar is stuffed, it hardens again.
The intentional shell.
Sani & I arrive at the reservation.
He says, I can feel the Motherland cradling me.
I feel safe in this car, this desert of glittering dirt
with sleeping bags in the back seat & the road ahead.
Sani says, I would like to direct the stars.
Which I think means,
anything is possible.
I think he is right.
I have not thought of my scar, like the tip of a whip.
I have not slathered Vaseline on it to make it glisten less true.
I have not crammed
my spirit too small
to fit in a space
smaller than my pinky’s tip
in days
& days.
The Motherland feels different than my egg of a room
at Aunt Jack’s, my egg of a life in Virginia.
I don’t even mind that she has not called,
not even once.
I’ll rest here,
caged on this holy land
& grow.
When it is time to uncage,
I don’t mind if the cocoon is dropped
& I splatter like a Pollock painting—
a little bruised but
free
free
free
& flying.
WE FOLD DOWN THE SEATS & SLEEP IN THE BACK OF THE JEEP
With the trunk open,
sharing one sleeping bag.
The right angle of Sani’s arm
has been my pillow for many days.
When I fall asleep
I dream the same dream,
especially when Sani & I sleep
back to back,
conjoined at our spines.
I dream red lines—
guitar strings strumming music
crisscross our bodies, binding us tight.
I dream that on this land older than myth
some sort of magic communes between us.
I ALSO DREAM
Grandfather is waving to me
in a cemetery I don’t know.
& Sani is beside him,
young, only coming to his hip.
His eyes are a crowded attic
of ghosts & hurt.
Grandfather pats Sani’s head
& hands him the five finger grass.
In my dream Sani eats the grass
& coughs up a white feather
he hands to Grandfather.
In my dream Sani stretches tall
&
nbsp; in the span of a second
& the five finger grass he swallowed
appears as tattoos on his skin.
I wake up panicked.
Sani is still asleep & I trace
his tattoos, trying to translate
the untranslatable.
CAR RIDE TO WINDOW ROCK
Moth (application on phone): It doesn’t hurt
to apply to Juilliard, Sani.
Sani (driving): I won’t get in.
Moth (annoyed): Yeah, you won’t
if you don’t apply.
Sani (pulling over): Moth, singing is sometimes
too much truth.
Moth (voice shaking): But when you sing,
Sani, the universe startles & listens.
Your soul is lighter after—like it can fly.
Sani (car parked, facing me): I’ve fallen
too many times, Moth.
Moth (voice soft): You’re no Icarus;
you can write a new origin story
with your violin voice.
Sani (serious): Honey, my mind
has locked
my violin voice away.
Moth (smirking): I hid the key
in my mouth.
Sani (very serious): Would you like me to find it?
Moth (nodding): Your future
depends on it.
KISSING SANI (FEELS LIKE…)
Witnessing a blue sunset on Mars;
harvesting the notes that are impossible to sing.
As natural as the gray wolf
moving the moon across the sky
without misplacing her howl.
Like keeping company with the mouths of mermaids;
a sea burial—benthic creatures peacefully encroaching.
It’s like if a blue whale lost its soul mate for a decade,
then when they find each other