Alchemy Horse
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
+ + +
Copyright © 2023 by Natalie Diaz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 24, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
