American they said + + but Horse I dreamed
                                                                                 , and Horse became

                        ++            ++            ++
+  ++       +++     ++     ++    +++       ++     ++
               +            +++                           +++             +

+ + + I was cleaved + from human-earth + + +
Redsap lymph calcium + + + Atlas and femur
            , A new Chaos—
+ come forth + through the world’s foaming + crust
            + + then licked + into my roan skin

+ + + A flesh being bearing + its first dreamSelf + + +

I came to life + + how stars appear—
            , Of dust + +

collapsed + till struck
                                    +        + +
+ ++              +     ++ to light + + +       +
       +      ++   +        +            +   +     ++

            Dream-erupted—
, Gila Monsters + lavablack + +

                          +++ Land +++ +++ +++
                                                      , All its thunders + + +

            In this great magnetic field + +
I am a knowledge system + + +

My hair is a tangled Mojave Dictionary + + +
            , And my tongue + is a danger + +
I speak a darkwhip + into the haboob’s goldthrob + + +

This valley’s bright-weather is my ceremony + + +
, Flashflood + is my medicine—
            + + how I clean myself of Self

+ + + America + + Hoard of Property + is a debris
            + of my cells— limestone + + wound-porous +
sea-floor + + basalt + trilobite + camel bones +                          
            , glass and Blackmountain + + +
                                         +
                                    + + + +
                              + + + + + + +

+ + + We professional mourners + +
            crying for our lives + and for hire + + +
From dark-colonies + in the caves behind our hearts
+ + we weep the sun to fall + and bats into the sky

+ + + We weep the saguaros to bloom + Eastward
+ and moonwhite + + soft-petaled wounds +
            circling their night-wrists and crowns + + +
                        Grief is our lush and luxury—

            , The strain + of anything + that grows
+ + + Sand rose + + iron wood + + smoke tree + + +
We tend dune-gardens + from Deadlands + +
            till the halite beds + + reap selenite thorns +
from the horned toads’ backs + + + 

+ + + In the a.m. heatwarp + vultures 
+ ripple the violet skydome + + +
A swarm of bloodgloved-archivists + + +
            They sky-write                                  + +
+ + + + +                     + + +                   + +
            + + +      + + + directions—
                + + + +                        + + + + 
          + +                                            + +
    + +                                                        + +
, To the museum , To the university
            , To the hospital + + +

In this Epoch of Citizenship +
I must arrive everywhere twice—
            , Occupied and Unceded + + +
One hand The Comet + +
the other hand + Who Makes the Comet Come
+ + + So call me Lodestone + or Alone + + +
            Whisper me +
                         , Secret Magnet + + +

In pink twilight + + my love and I are effigies
            + + leaching salt +
through our terracotta hands + + +

My language clays + + and maps +
amaranth lather + along my thigh—a migration
            + of Exile—
, A self-determined Relocation of pleasure—
                         , wantneed + + +

We are the origin + + oxygen + and always becoming
            + + + Bloodworms
+ from which new land might grow + + +
            , How we make soil + +
then mud where we laid + + +
Alchemy of our wet denim skinz + and gravity + + +

We pulse animal and sensual + + +
            Thundercats of love + greening the desert—
, Pale grasses + fruit in my breath
            + + grey-green along the belly of the nightbranch + + +

            We are + unacreable
+ + + We abrade + the transit + the survey
+ + hold tight and repeat ourselves +
            in crystal lattice + + +

Come morning + + + Come Mercurylight + + +
We are blessed and scattered + + +
Shards + of a horsehead + water jar—
            , Lonely for a body + + and aching +
for the cool taste + and shape the first water once took + + +

This Nation + is a white bright + magnesium
            + NDN burn + + +
I fume and illumine + in its quantum-arson—
            , Indian Iron Alchemy Horse + + +

+ + + My brothers are the Cold Killers + +
shovelers + of silver anthracite + +
            fuelgods + of the midnight train

            + boxcar + jumptrack + jolt-light
+ + + Vaporing + + nightsalt + to cloud—
            , Mustanging + + +

Every desert highway is sacred +
            and gas station pumps + break our hearts + + +
We have pedal bones + white doctors call coffin bones
+ + + That’s why I’m always dying—

+ + + That’s why—
, I’m always halfghost + + half-back + + half-dressed
+ as the war party who will return—
, With a full tank of gas + + +
            , And a stick of scalps + + +

Tonight the city + + is a tectonic bone radio—
            , Our ancestors are on every channel + + +

Scorpions whip and fluoresce + from the shadows of Settler houses
Green-eyed wolf spiders + emerge from their dens +
            to join the dark hunt + + +

The midnight train + monsoons + around the bend
+ + recognizes me + as a relation + and cries +
            Chuk+Shon     Chuk+Shon     Chuk+Shon

            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +           
            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +                       
            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +                       

+ + + We are each + the other’s + passenger + + +

+ + + On the horizon + my warriors volcano + + +
            + + + I shatter cinders + from my hair
+ + I’ll watch them eat the day-aliens with flame
            + + + American + NDN + horse pyre + + +

The Hohokam canals + crack awake + +
gush their ghostwaters + through the settlement streets + + +
            blister + and boneflower + + +

I war whoop out + into the empty + displaced hip +
of the Ghost-sea + + and the Ghost-sea +
            war-weeps back +
spiraling + the etched shells of my ears + + +

+  + + A + M + E + R + I + C + A—
, Haunted hotel + shiprock + rockwreck + ship of fools + + +
            , Little giant cemetery + of braids
              + +       + +       + +       + +    
                x           x            x           x
             +++     +++      +++     +++
                x           x            x           x
              + +       + +       + +       + +
                +           +          +           +

+ + + Beloved Occupiers + + I am posting notice—
            , There is no more vacancy + + +

When this world has ended + I will carry my people + Home
+ + +

We'll say unbelievable things 
to each other in the early morning— 
  
our blue coming up from our roots, 
our water rising in our extraordinary limbs. 
  
All night I dreamt of bonfires and burn piles 
and ghosts of men, and spirits 
behind those birds of flame. 
  
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes, 
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through. 
  
It is a short walkway— 
into another bedroom. 
  
Consider the handle. Consider the key. 
  
I say to a friend, how scared I am of sharks. 
  
How I thought I saw them in the creek 
across from my street. 
  
I once watched for them, holding a bundle 
of rattlesnake grass in my hand, 
shaking like a weak-leaf girl. 
  
She sends me an article from a recent National Geographic that says, 
  
Sharks bite fewer people each year than 
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records. 
  
Then she sends me on my way. Into the City of Sharks. 
  
Through another doorway, I walk to the East River saying, 
  
Sharks are people too. 
Sharks are people too. 
Sharks are people too. 
  
I write all the things I need on the bottom 
of my tennis shoes. I say, Let's walk together. 
  
The sun behind me is like a fire. 
Tiny flames in the river's ripples. 
  
I say something to God, but he's not a living thing, 
so I say it to the river, I say, 
  
I want to walk through this doorway 
But without all those ghosts on the edge, 
I want them to stay here. 
I want them to go on without me. 
  
I want them to burn in the water.

^{i.m. Paula Merwin}

All this time, I felt like I had to describe 
the things I did, and what was done to me,
how I had to wander a strange world for years, 
needing to be busy, sleeping in strange beds, 
searching through cities for chapels to weep in, 
learning the stitches that keep a ripped heart 
together for a while, when what I really need 
to say is that it rained all night and morning, 
and the drops were a percussion on the trees,
and after the sun rose, I saw an insect land on the railing 
and take shelter, and a bird drank from a leaf. 
Wild pigs exploded from the bushes where they’d hid,
and the sage in the bowl smelt of memory and musk.
A toad sat—still as any god—on the wet stone.

Take it easy, Sadness. Settle down.
You asked for evening. Now, it’s come. It’s here.
A choking fog has blanketed the town,
infecting some with calm, the rest with fear.

While the squalid throng of mortals feels the sting
of heartless pleasure swinging its barbed knout
and finds remorse in slavish partying,
take my hand, Sorrow. I will lead you out,

away from them. Look as the dead years lurch,
in tattered clothes, from heaven’s balconies.
From the depths, regret emerges with a grin.

The spent sun passes out beneath an arch,
and, shroudlike, stretched from the antipodes,
—hear it, O hear, love!—soft night marches in.

*

Recueillement

Sois sage, ô ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille.
Tu réclamais le Soir; il descend; le voici:
Une atmosphère obscure enveloppe la ville,
Aux uns portant la paix, aux autres le souci.

Pendant que des mortels la multitude vile,
Sous le fouet du Plaisir, ce bourreau sans merci,
Va cueillir des remords dans la fête servile,
Ma Douleur, donne-moi la main; viens par ici,

Loin d'eux. Vois se pencher les défuntes Années,
Sur les balcons du ciel, en robes surannées;
Surgir du fond des eaux le Regret souriant;

Le soleil moribond s'endormir sous une arche,
Et, comme un long linceul traînant à l'Orient,
Entends, ma chère, entends la douce Nuit qui marche.