they sing
& dance
& the ocean tsunamis with them, saying:
Look at that,
their tongue prints still match.
Like home
home
home.
WINDOW ROCK
It’s the capital of the Navajo Nation
& looks like cookie dough
with a space taken out
by a perfect circle cookie cutter.
Sani says, Ni’ Ałníi’gi, which means “Center of the World”—
its first name.
A long time ago
there used to be water here
& medicine men would travel here
from very far with woven jugs
to collect water for Blessingway ceremonies.
I stare up at it.
A larger
miracle
the longer I watch it.
ALMOST AT SANI’S HOUSE & MOTHS PEPPER THE WINDSHIELD
Moth: There are more than one hundred sixty thousand species of moths.
The black witch moth can migrate long distances.
Sani: I migrate
from the Motherland to Virginia.
So I’ll be that one.
Nobody wants to be the common clothes moth;
its gluttony is legendary. The peppered moth’s wings
are sprinkled with dark splatters on a tan canvas.
The atlas moth is one of the largest,
but, as a sacrifice, it has no mouth—
it doesn’t eat from birth to death.
The hummingbird moth predates the hummingbird.
The luna moth, greenish yellow & grand, is the priest—
it holds communion at its altar. The other moths
sometimes confuse it for the moon.
Moth: Which moth should I be?
Sani (jaw working): As a caterpillar,
the sphinx moth
entombs itself an inch in the soil
before it flies home.
Moth: Hoodoo work?
I’ll take that,
I’ll be magic & mystery.
SANI’S HOME
The house is small & filled with food.
A worn-out La-Z-Boy rocks
in front of a tiny TV with foil on the antennas.
It reminds me of a moth’s bushy feelers.
All Sani’s father says to him is
Your hair looks shorter, but your eyes
seem brighter, that’s good
before he leaves through the front door
without saying hello to me.
I wonder how his father can tell,
when Sani’s hair is always tied tight
in a bun. I guess fathers just know
these things.
He is like that before he goes to heal people.
Sani squeezes my hand.
Makes me think of my aunt (Jack)
always maneuvering around me,
worried my shrinking might shrink her.
I bet it takes a lot of energy to heal,
I say, thinking of my scar.
HOW TO MAKE PB&J ACCORDING TO SANI
Two slices of bread
Peanut butter & jelly
Peanut butter first, on both bread slices
Jelly next, on one bread slice
Only one scoop
Sani says, Peanut butter on both slices is important.
I (Moth) say, To keep them from blending together.
SANI’S ROOM
One twin bed.
One lamp.
One dresser.
& a large map.
His dresser has sketches
of birds & mountains
& a girl with black & gray moths for hair
with a scar down her face
like the tip of the whip.
I grab the picture. When did you draw this?
Years ago. He shrugs.
The girl is dancing in it.
Yes.
That’s strange.
A little.
Is it me? I swallow.
At first Sani doesn’t answer.
Instead he pulls the feather
we found in the graveyard ground
from his backpack
& places it on his dresser.
I find the picture
of Grandfather & me.
I put it on top of the feather
because they seem to go together.
I’ve dreamed of your face before,
but your hair was a swarm
of fluttering moths.
“SAMSON,” A SONG BY REGINA SPEKTOR
It’s one of Sani’s favorite songs.
He plays it
when he threatens to cut his hair. Which would be a shame
but seems to be the opposite of what his father wants.
So he might.
I think it will be hard for him. I think about cutting
it for him, in his sleep & maybe he will wake up not even noticing.
Maybe his father could blame me & not Sani.
His father left again without a word—
he just put a cloth filled with those mystery pills
on the kitchen counter and left
carrying so much weight on his shoulders.
Why is it always like this?
The ones who are hard as stone,
the ones who don’t expand
& contract like a pupil
exposed to light,
are left to crack slowly.
If Sani were more cave than stone,
I’d crawl into him. To prove I would not leave.
To prove he can carry something so alive.
In the end,
Sani keeps his hair because some things aren’t worth
waking up weaker.
Sani reaches for the cloth
filled with mystery pills
on the kitchen counter.
I think he might take one (again),
maybe they help like when he takes
his white-and-blue ones (consistently)
so that his sadness comes in steady waves
instead of a spiraling typhoon.
He doesn’t open the cloth; he throws it in the trash can
& pulls me close, forehead to forehead—
Maybe you won’t leave.
Maybe. Maybe. You can haunt my dreams.
I whisper a new “Summer Song” lyric:
Honey, you can keep me forever,
like a phantom limb.
SANI’S DAD IS A MEDICINE MAN
He can heal the hurt in anything & I wish
I knew a language to make him look right at me,
to make him understand
that my hurt is farther down.
Not even in me.
Maybe in the ground around me.
Rooted.
Sani’s dad does tell us a story on our third night,
about the man dressed as a wolf. The dead man.
About not grieving at a grave for too long
because the spirit might stay & become a trickster.
He says, You should fear ghosts, but I would take my family
see-through, like papier-mâché, or solid.
Sani says, What’s wrong with remembering too much?
His father crosses his weathered arms. You forget
why the breeze is a miracle & why the stars are a gift.
SANI’S NIGHTMARES
Sani is screaming
in his sleep,
clawing
at his skin
like the heated
hands of hell
are coming for him.
He can’t sing
between sobs,
so even though
my voice is dusty,
I sing as best I can
to him—
& eventually he sleeps.
SANI’S DAD REFILLS HIS MYSTERY PILLS
& Sani plops the clear orbs
into
his mouth (again).
Every day, twice a day,
for many days.
I don’t know what they do—& Sani won’t tell me—
but they make him different.
Harder to touch, but his mind
seems less attic-with-ghost—
more attic-of-blankness.
I don’t mind;
at least when Sani dreams,
he doesn’t scream.
HEALTH SYSTEM
Sani is sick
& it is not something his father’s (mystery pills)
can heal; sadness still wears Sani like a suit.
In Navajo medicine there are steps
in the healing process
& a different medicine man dedicated to each step.
One medicine man smokes out the problem.
Herbs are prescribed by another.
A mixture is made by another.
Sani has been through this process many times—
taken herbs & Western pills.
His soul is still sometimes broken-feeling—
less when he sings, more on his Motherland.
Sani doesn’t tell me that part.
That is what I hear his father saying:
You know you have to take both of your pills
this close to your ancestors.
You have to be consistent with them,
not just here & there—that’s not
how it works.
His father says that to him
over & over again,
each time Sani thinks about
flushing the (mystery)
pills down the toilet.
Over & over again Sani says,
I know, I know,
but when I am consistent
I can’t see the truth
clearly. Even the moon
seems different.
& the nightmares always follow.
His father keeps refilling the cloth
sitting open on the kitchen counter
& I keep offering as much life as I can spare.
WE HAVE COCOONED HERE
One day after flushing the pills down the toilet,
Sani looks at me, not sort of through me.
He says, We have been in the Motherland for two weeks.
Which, to me, somehow
only feels like two days,
but to Sani feels like Venus time.
It is as if part of me has slept;
I drift through days
& skip through weeks
like skipping stones
over water.
COYOTE STORY: FIRST SCOLDER
Because Sani’s dad won’t talk to me,
we go camping. On the ride to the site
a coyote crosses our path.
Sani leans in & grabs my hand.
We have a lot of stories about the coyote.
I draw circles on Sani’s palm.
Tell me a story, Sani.
Sani brings my fingers to his mouth & kisses them:
Coyote is mischievous in the Third World.
In the Third World there are animals
in abundance. Coyote steals Water Buffalo’s children.
In anger Water Buffalo calls a flood,
which forces the First Man & First Woman to leave
the Third World & go to the Fourth.
I remember that story, I say.
Sani’s grip tightens around my hand.
There are also skinwalkers.
Evil things that lurk around
at night. Do you want
to go back?
We don’t turn back.
We drive faster.
BLOOD MOON IN NEW MEXICO
By the time we reach the campsite
the moon is as old & golden as captured fireflies.
We open the back of the Wrangler & spread a blanket.
Sani: Tilting the light, Coyote is many things. Like a soul.
Moth: Souls love chaos, I suppose.
Moth: How come you don’t talk to many people here?
Sani: You talk to me, honey.
Moth: Answer the question.
Sani: They think my mind is cursed.
Moth: Is it?
Sani: I used to think so.
Now I don’t know the difference
between a miracle & a curse.
FIRESIDE CHAT
Sani: If you could do anything, what would you do?
Moth: I would dance with the soil, every moment—
everything would be my soundtrack.
Cicada hymns & basketball thuds.
I’d go to Juilliard & dance in everyone’s
minds & live forever.
Silence. Chirping.
Moth: If you could do anything, what would you do?
Sani: I’d write songs.
Slow ones, sad ones, soft ones
sealed with small kisses for you.
I’d play my guitar on corners,
then on stages, then in stadiums.
I’d grow & live & live
onstage every night.
Silence.
Moth: Why can’t we do that?
Sani: Because you won’t dance
& I hardly sing or play
& everyone says I can’t.
Moth: If you play & sing, I’ll dance.
GUITAR & VOICE & DANCE
Sani’s fingers have scars
on their tips
from plucking strings.
His voice rides the wind,
ignites my spine,
sets my toes on fire.
He wants to write songs;
he wants to write things
so big they stretch from
the Navajo Nation
around the equator
& back.
He used to play all the time;
he used to sing all the time.
& his mom got lonely & left
& his mind kept poking itself
& his stepfather kept sticking him.
But tonight he plays
& sings
& I spill alive, dancing.
DANCING
Dancing again feels like glass feathers
falling on a silver city.
Like Grandfather coaxing magic
from roots.
Like god is in the brown dirt
I stomp on.
Sani keeps singing
& I keep dancing—with a hint of swallow your pills,
wash it back with bathtub moonshine,
which of course also feels like the color of dusty
Carolina heat & humid New York summers
& riding bikes with no training wheels.
I dance
like the west wind
is winding,
twining
our souls together
like red strings.
WHEN THE SONG IS OVER
I am weightless.
Sani is breathless.
His mouth finds mine.
PUZZLE IN THE SKY
Sani: The stars are a puzzle of myths.
’Cause we all look up, we can’t help it.
Moth: Will you keep singing?
Will you keep taking your blue-&-white pills?
Will you keep taking the clear orb pills
your father leaves on the kitchen counter?
Sani: I don’t know if the price
of getting better is
worth it.
Moth: Life, a chance on a stage,
even if only for two seconds,
is worth every pill—every scarred finger.
Sani: Will you keep dancing?
Moth: That’s different. I am guilty.
Sani: No, honey, you’re innocent.
Moth: Sani … there are no more innocents left.
Sani: Moth,
you
are
innocent.
SANI’S NOTE
“Where I
Want to Go,” a Song by Roo Panes
I dedicate
this song to you.
I can’t get
the words right
& I know
if you really
knew me,
thought my thoughts,
you would not
want me.
I can’t have you.
You’re not someone I can hold.
Even though I was
a beach with no sand,
a starless sky before you.
What am I
when you leave?
Maybe it is better
just to leave now.
If we could stay
in this cocoon,
if we could stay,
if we could stay
in this Fifth World
we created with stories
& song lyrics
& dance.
I dream
about you
all the time.
Of my hands learning
the topography of you.
But dreamers wake,
fables end, lyrics are forgotten
& cocoons break
open, eventually.
DISASSEMBLE
Sani leaves me at the campsite
with a note that feels like a forever goodbye.
He leaves me with food, water & the Wrangler
with its keys.
It is like he is asking me to leave—
begging me to go.
For the first time in a long time
I feel the heated hands of hell
reaching through the ground.
I pull out Aunt Jack’s iPhone
& google humanity.
There is a Walmart only a mile away.