The winding cord of highways, unkempt
gravel roads and the trails of animals—
a record of who and what has passed over,
an agony of secrets.

In the end, they have all borne witness,
eyes like glass beads that can never blink.
The dull light of motel neon shines ominously.
An engine growls across the landscape.

Brittle men who are splintered like glass
thrown from a second story window
and we are the room they leave behind.
They are pathetic husks, feeble in spirit.

Fragments fall along fields and shallow ditches,
in overlooked alleyways or underpasses.
A cold, empty breeze rising from the debris.
The first and last moment of her.

It is rage that pulls her up from this place.
She spews out the wretched and miserable
as particles of dawn-lit soil illuminate her skin.
Her hair is a two-edged sword.

She stitches together the collective story of origin,
her body a map: descended from the stars,
on the backs of animal sisters,
carried to safety in a bird’s beak.

^{for Deon}

I peer at the ridges of your palm
rested along the crevice of mine,
while tracing your jagged vasculature
with a delicate press of my finger,

and I explore every uneven wrinkle,
every pronounced callus, every rounded
mole like it is the hilly, stone-ridden
backyard of my childhood home in Mongmong.

I know this place. I have been here
before. I read the swirls inscribed
into your firm dark skin, sound out

each node and connecting branch,
sew syllables into words that spell
out gima’: home.

I raise your hand transposed against
the evening sky, clear of clouds, and I
can find the constellations within you.

Did you know our forefathers did this at sea—
placed their arm to the heavens to translate
the stars? Master navigators of the open ocean,

yet you, my love, are more than a map; I dare
not fold nor decipher your complexity. You
are the beloved, longed-for destination at the end

of the journey, the place that our ancestors craved
return, the reason for the expedition—refuge,
promise, hope. You are home.

Winter rises southeast—
Deer gnaw withered apples
as morning star fades
above indigo canyon.

Concealed in tall feathergrass
mountain lion nestles.
His tan body, mesmerized
like a stone fetish.

Sun blazes amber rays.
Snow powders the deer trail.
A hunter whispers through mist
his flowered prayer,

Muukai-tra Hush-tseh,
Meish guy-you, gumaa-tsinee,
Mountain Lion Man,
it’s already morning, help me.

Climbing Hawk Mountain
through blue juniper terrain
mountain lion leaps,
an arrow blest with pollen.

Winter sets southwest—
Deer in shadow tinged purple
enters spruce tree house
on his breath of every color.

Next to the fourteen excellent reasons
to make February the month of love,
which serve to advertise the best mattresses
for double beds, queen or king size
I read, just as in the heyday
of Colonialism:

"The soldiers ask the indigenous
people to transport them on horses;
if there aren't any, they force them
to carry them on their backs."

There is this shifting, endless film
And I have followed it down the valleys
And over the hills,—
Pointing with wavering finger
When it disappeared in purple forest-patches
With its ruffle and wave to the slightest-breathing wind-God.

There is this film
Seen suddenly, far off,
When the sun, walking to his setting,
Turns back for a last look,
And out there on the far, far prairie
A lonely drowsing cabin catches and holds a glint,
For one how endless moment,
In a staring window the fire and song of the martyrs!

There is this film
That has passed to my fingers
And I have trembled,
Afraid to touch.

And in the eyes of one
Who had wanted to give what I had asked
But hesitated—tried—and then
Came with a weary, aged, “Not quite,”
I could but see that single realmless point of time,
All that is sad, and tired, and old—
And endless, shifting film.

And I went again
Down the valleys and over the hills,
Pointing with wavering finger,
Ever reaching to touch, trembling,
Ever fearful to touch.

The invasion came like a whisper,
and the leaves changed shapes, 
and the niyok grew sick.

Coconut trees,
our culture’s tree of life,
dying slowly 
as invasive beetles 
eat their hearts 
like world powers 
devour islands.

Weavers hold culture in their 
palms,
weave tradition into their families,
tuck young palms 
into their fingers,
mold them into 
entities.

But now,
our culture’s tree of life 
has grown ill from 
foreign settlement.

Palms severed,
bent like a salute
the way Chamorros are cut like cards
and dealt in front lines of American wars.

The weavers were the first to know
that our niyok is 
sick,
in need of healing.

The same way our island is 
sick,
in need of healing.

I’ve taken up the craft,
so I can weave
traditions
into the palms of my children.

I can only hope that when 
I master it,

palms will remain
for them

to weave into our future.

Fannie Akpik
leads her dance group
at the high school hallway in Utqiagvik.
Voice
clear as a loon’s call,
tender
as the warm center of the lagoon where dreams come to surface.
Songs erupted from the Qargi,
flash in the dark,
piece of the moon bitten off,
landing at the tip of the drum stick.
Sealgut covering of prayers
whirring like wind slipping into tied-up hoods.
Whalers come home
to their Elders’ voices,
their hands that shape sod and clear snowy pathways,
enunciating real people sounds that shiver
on the tunnel between the heart and throat.

^{always for my family}

Circling around flames and dancing with the blazes
Encumbering sparks take flight into the night sky,
A swirling twinkle resembling a star crown
Moving into empty canopies resembling ghosts

A threshold colossal structure with rusty bells shakes
the sound of fire sings lingering beyond the flames
sent across the mountain and valleys

These spirits come from the mountains and move towards
the south, between the sacred narrow canyons,
The Sierra Madre Canyon walls sing in their echoes

A medicine reveals a stick and brings the wall down
For the Ndé—the people who wandered into night
Ascending towards the ending sky and onto the lost land

Losing their tongues and eyes they consume the mountain
Air and waters trying to heal all their lungs that bellowed
Outward against the slow breezes and heavy breaths

A hundred years the spirits protected them from
the sixteenth calvary who then believed, in all their hearts,
a good Injun was a dead Injun. Even then the spirits protected
the people for another twenty-seven years until they reached
                                    —their forced destination

A place where cutting their hair died as the spirits watched
The people searched the underground catacombs of St. Augustine
While hearing the waves crash against the stone walls

Outside the thick walls, the people were exposed
To yellow fever and malaria, they died and died
                                    —some survived

After thirty more years the people returned to their homeland
closer to the Skeleton Canyons where an epic scribed
on the mountain walls called back their ancestors

At night the drumming echoed like the murmur inside
Their bodies hearing the loud thumps come and go

In 1986 the people returned to their original place
                                                —entering the ancient canyons
                                                —honoring those killed
                                                —remembering the mountains

At night the sparks fly high as the people hear those rusty bells
and hollow songs        —they feel the drums and footsteps reverberate
Inside their veins every time, they look to the mountains

I build it, I build the house, I build the eaves, I build the roof where we looked for stars, I build the ever-clogged gutters for which no time could be found, I build the brick face and the curb appeal, I build the door slamming open as the child flew forth into what the window framed, the streets calling my name, I build the lintel where they bent their heads in whispers, I build the climb and precarious, I build the sky with its tiny points of light which might be my mother coming home at last, I build the last two-story she might ever own clean and free, I build the longing, I build the view to the wicked canal, I build the red front porch where the bottle fell and bled its wine, where the last chance of reconciliation also shattered and never forget it was my fault, my careless, which left the dark red stain, I build the sometime home now paved over and prime real-estate condominium, I build the memory like something I can inhabit, and the sawgrass he planted and the lemon trees she cherished, perhaps if I build it there will finally be room for the broken, the missing, therein to dwell.

I’ve avoided opening my throat in fear the dead would rise, walk out of me, leave me emptier after their fleeting, and still get deported back into the abyss they climbed from. I don’t think they hunger me. They want to abandon and find a soft rock to lay their head on, a voice, an empty water jug, a song, the striking pain of a windless and deserted desert or a revolver or drugs or gang affiliations. Instead I hoax them to sit perched, their black wings all slick and crow-like while I drag the weight of Mexican unsung mourning in choir. Now I have someone to blame. My brother isn’t coming back from the dead and I won’t fix my scale. The tone will always be off, a crooked meteor slicing what’s left of the sky. Songs will remain unsung, the diaphragm, a cheap staircase, not even lullabies can squeeze out, my voice box sealed, a better state line than the Mexican-American border. This time mami won’t become one million doves in the driver seat while she sings to Jenni Rivera as we drive through the sandstorm. Instead she hardens, tells me of the desert roses tumbling across the desert, how just like us they have razor sharp petals as armor on their body from tumbling aimlessly for years. Memory still doesn’t strike a guitar string, the tíos are turning in their grave, while abuelita twists her mouth so we don’t see her teethless. We all have this disease, a black dove chewing on its feathers inside of a country inside us, trapped in the cave of us, we rage or corridos Chihuahuenses or a dying ensemble, but even if the song kills me I won’t set it free. It’s obvious I must avoid the eulogy that comes after talking about my brother’s death because it’ll haunt me, his death, it will follow me and take me too, and I want to sleep tonight.

^{May 2020}

It’s been 300 days since I first laid in your arms
First felt the chill of your kiss on my skin 
You brought me to the thin line between life and death
Between frostbite and heat exhaustion 
You taught me balance
Patience
Compassion

And when you stretched your arms around us
You taught us safety
What it meant to create security with our own bodies
Voices 
So for you 
I am every child who imagined someday you’d be free
I am every prayer laid at your feet

These days 
I am hundreds of miles away 
But you still visit me in my dreams
We share ceremony with Niolopua
And in that realm 
You keep all my secrets
All my fears 
All I am too afraid or ashamed to say out loud

For my fellow kiaʻi
It’s been 300 days since we marked the boundaries
Lined our jurisdictions with the trembling tenor of our collective voice
Since we began to feed each other
In food
In spirit
In care

For you
I am everything that cannot be broken
I am your first pinky promise
I am the incoming swell
I am every bit of love you taught me to lay at her feet
I am songs between stories, between tears
I am the water we fought to protect
That we shared 
Together
In the bitter cold of night
When we worried
No one else was coming