lake-loop

Natalie Diaz - 1978-

            , because there was yet no lake

into many nights we made the lake
             a labor, and its necessary laborings
to find the basin not yet opened
in my body, yet my body—any body
wet or water from the start, to fill a clay
, start being what it ever means, a beginning—
the earth’s first hand on a vision-quest
wildering night’s skin fields, for touch
             like a dark horse made of air
, turned downward in the dusk, opaquing
a hand resembles its ancestors—
the war, or the horse who war made
             , what it means to be made
to be ruined before becoming—rift
             glacial, ablation and breaking
lake-hip sloping, fluvial, then spilled—

I unzip the lake, walk into what I am—
             the thermocline, and oxygen
, as is with kills, rivers, seas, the water
             is of our own naming
I am wet we call it because it is
a happening, is happening now

imagined light is light’s imagination
a lake shape of it
             , the obligatory body, its dark burning
reminding us back, memory as filter
desire as lagan, a hydrology—
             The lake is alone, we say in Mojave

, every story happens because someone’s mouth,
a nature dependent—life, universe
             Here at the lake, say
, she wanted what she said
             to slip down into it
for which a good lake will rise—Lake
which once meant, sacrifice
which once meant, I am devoted

             , Here I am, atmosphere
sensation, pressure
, the lake is beneath me, pleasure bounded
a slip space between touch and not
slip of paper, slip of hand
             slip body turning toward slip trouble
, I am who slipped the moorings
             I am so red with lack

to loop-knot
or leave the loop beyond the knot
             we won’t say love because it is
a difference between vertex and vertices—
the number of surfaces we break
enough or many to make the lake
             loosened from the rock
one body’s dearth is another body’s ache
             lay it to the earth

, all great lakes are meant to take
             sediment, leg, wrist, wrist, the ear
let down and wet with stars, dock lights
distant but wanted deep,
             to be held in the well of the eye
woven like water, through itself, in
and inside, how to sate a depression
if not with darkness—if darkness is not
             fingers brushing a body, shhhh
, she said, I don’t know what the world is

I slip for her, or anything
, like language, new each time
             diffusion—remade and organized
and because nothing is enough, waves—
each an emotional museum of water

left light trembles a lake figure on loop
             a night-loop
, every story is a story of water
             before it is gold and alone
before it is black like a rat snake
I begin at the lake
, clean once, now drained
             I am murk—I am not clean
everything has already happened
always the lake is just up ahead in the poem
, my mouth is the moon, I bring it down
lay it over the lake of her thighs
             warm lamping ax
hewing water’s tender shell
slant slip, entering like light, surrounded
into another skin
             where there was yet no lake
yet we made it, make it still
to drink and clean ourselves on

Copyright © 2020 by Natalie Diaz. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 28, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps when Mom unlocked and opened the front door. O God, he said, O God. He wants to kill me, Mom. When Mom unlocked and opened the front door at 3 a.m., she was in her nightgown, Dad was asleep. He wants to kill me, he told her, looking over his shoulder. 3 a.m. and in her nightgown, Dad asleep, What's going on? she asked, Who wants to kill you? He looked over his shoulder. The devil does. Look at him, over there. She asked, What are you on? Who wants to kill you? The sky wasn't black or blue but the green of a dying night. The devil, look at him, over there. He pointed to the corner house. The sky wasn't black or blue but the dying green of night. Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. My brother pointed to the corner house. His lips flickered with sores. Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. O God, I can see the tail, he said, O God, look. Mom winced at the sores on his lips. It's sticking out from behind the house. O God, see the tail, he said, Look at the goddamned tail. He sat cross-legged, weeping on the front steps. Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother. O God, O God, she said.

My whole life I have obeyed it— its every hunting. I move beneath it as a jaguar moves, in the dark- liquid blading of shoulder. The opened-gold field and glide of the hand, light-fruited, and scythe-lit. I have come to this god-made place— Teotlachco, the ball court— because the light called: lightwards! and dwells here, Lamp-land. We touch the ball of light to one another—split bodies stroked bright— desire-knocked. Light reshapes my lover’s elbow, a brass whistle. I put my mouth there—mercy-luxed, and come, we both, to light. It streams me. A rush of scorpions— fast-light. A lash of breath— god-maker. Light horizons her hip—springs an ocelot cut of chalcedony and magnetite. Hip, limestone and cliffed, slopes like light into her thigh—light-box, skin-bound. Wind shakes the calabash, disrupts the light to ripple—light-struck, then scatter. This is the war I was born toward, her skin, its lake-glint. I desire—I thirst— to be filled—light-well. The light throbs everything, and songs against her body, girdling the knee bone. Our bodies—light-harnessed, light-thrashed. The bruising: bilirubin bloom, violet. A work of all good yokes—blood-light— to make us think the pain is ours to keep, light-trapped, lanterned. I asked for it. I own it— lightmonger. I am light now, or on the side of light— light-head, light-trophied. Light-wracked and light-gone. Still, the sweet maize—an eruption of light, or its feast, from the stalk of my lover’s throat. And I, light-eater, light-loving.

From the Desire Field

I don’t call it sleep anymore.
I’ll risk losing something new instead—

like you lost your rosen moon, shook it loose.

But sometimes when I get my horns in a thing—
a wonder, a grief or a line of her—it is a sticky and ruined
fruit to unfasten from,

despite my trembling.

Let me call my anxiety, desire, then.
Let me call it, a garden.

Maybe this is what Lorca meant
when he said, verde que te quiero verde—

because when the shade of night comes,
I am a field of it, of any worry ready to flower in my chest.

My mind in the dark is una bestia, unfocused,
hot. And if not yoked to exhaustion

beneath the hip and plow of my lover,
then I am another night wandering the desire field—

bewildered in its low green glow,

belling the meadow between midnight and morning.
Insomnia is like Spring that way—surprising
and many petaled,

the kick and leap of gold grasshoppers at my brow.

I am struck in the witched hours of want—

I want her green life. Her inside me
in a green hour I can’t stop.
Green vein in her throat green wing in my mouth

green thorn in my eye. I want her like a river goes, bending.
Green moving green, moving.

Fast as that, this is how it happens—
soy una sonámbula.

And even though you said today you felt better,
and it is so late in this poem, is it okay to be clear,
to say, I don’t feel good,

to ask you to tell me a story
about the sweet grass you planted—and tell it again
or again—

until I can smell its sweet smoke,
leave this thrashed field, and be smooth.

Natalie Diaz

2017

We pace each other for a long time. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the baby on the mountain. I am in a cold stream where I led you. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the woman sticking her tongue out in a cold stream where I led you. You are the woman with spring water palms. You are the woman sticking her tongue out. I am the woman who matches sounds. You are the woman with spring water palms. I am the woman who copies. You are the woman who matches sounds. You are the woman who makes up words. You are the woman who copies her cupped palm with her fist in clay. I am the woman who makes up words. You are the woman who shapes a drinking bowl with her fist in clay. I am the woman with rocks in her pockets. I am the woman who shapes. I was a baby who knew names. You are the child with rocks in her pockets. You are the girl in a plaid dress. You are the woman who knows names. You are the baby who could fly. You are the girl in a plaid dress upside-down on the monkey bars. You are the baby who could fly over the moon from a swinging perch upside-down on the monkey bars. You are the baby who eats meat. Over the moon from a swinging perch the feathery goblin calls her sister. You are the baby who eats meat the bitch wolf hunts and chews for you. The feathery goblin calls her sister: "You are braver than your mother. The bitch wolf hunts and chews for you. What are you whining about now?" You are braver than your mother and I am not a timid woman: what are you whining about now? My palms itch with slick anger, and I'm not a timid woman. You are the woman I can't mention; my palms itch with slick anger. You are the heiress of scraped knees. You are the woman I can't mention to a woman I want to love. You are the heiress of scraped knees: scrub them in mountain water. To a woman, I want to love women you could turn into, scrub them in mountain water, stroke their astonishing faces. Women you could turn into the scare mask of Bad Mother stroke their astonishing faces in the silver-scratched sink mirror. The scare mask of Bad Mother crumbles to chunked, pinched clay, sinks in the silver-scratched mirror. You are the Little Robber Girl, who crumbles the clay chunks, pinches her friend, givers her a sharp knife. You are the Little Robber Girl, who was any witch's youngest daughter. Our friend gives you a sharp knife, shows how the useful blades open. Was any witch's youngest daughter golden and bold as you? You run and show how the useful blades open. You are the baby on the mountain. I am golden and bold as you. You run and we pace each other for a long time.

I have never been anything like pink a child becomes a girl and finally when she heads for the dawn there is one long road to M. from Y. a bus goes by every thirty minutes when she missed the bus the girl walked with a large brown bag in the dark daytime on a road lined with black woods on both sides when a raven flew over she called out, "Poe" Poe's "The Raven" and Prison without Bars were her only partners to talk to even now she can dream of that long road sometimes the characteristic whizzing wind of Musashino carried off the girl's black bobbed hair childlike human beings go walking on it like black specks even though I call out come here I will put you on my palm the girl can't hear me because she is walking in the gray cloudy weather where time's rain of tens of years ago is about to fall the road where the child became a girl and finally heads for dawn is broken

Poems

lake-loop

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Skin-Light

From the Desire Field

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I Have Never Been Anything Like Pink

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